Incantations
by DarkRule
Summary: In a kingdom falling to ruin, the ruling family fights amongst themselves to maintain the throne. WARNING: sexual situations (consensual) and a sprinkling of naughty words
1. Chapter 1

**_Chapter One: Regina_**

She was alone.

That was rare as queen, and hard to manage. Since her wedding day, she had had shadows in maids and secretaries, guards and petitioners and servers. Only at night was she truly alone, and even then, guards were stationed just outside her room. In the twelve months since the King's Rock was slid up her finger, she could count the times she had spent in sunlight on her own in the single digits. Those times she treasured, and dreaded as well. They would end, and she did not want them to end. To never have privacy was to be in prison, albeit an ornate one.

She rushed down the hall of the Black Court, the merriment from the carnival in the garden carrying all the way. He had outdone himself for Snow's thirteenth birthday, as Regina dreaded and expected. A tenth of the coins in the treasury had gone to the elephants and camels, the transfiguring balloons and fireworks, the clowns and fortune-tellers. Tables were set for three hundred guests, all to receive a five-course meal and a present of a portrait in honor of the birthday girl. Jugglers, tight-walkers, contortionists, puppeteers, knife-throwers, dancers, musicians, jesters, poets, the list of entertainments to be acquired had spilled from the planning scroll.

Leopold lived by the cry, "But tomorrow I might die!" and thus excused his profligacy of court funds. But tomorrow he might die! So why not enjoy himself to the fullest now? This meant not sitting by mornings in his seat to judge matters of the realm, nor answering the increasingly desperate correspondence from the Holds. Tomorrow he might die! He busied himself with making the invitations to the grandest thirteenth birthday party the land had ever seen. In the afternoons, he gaddled about between the playhouse and the alehouse and the whorehouse for tomorrow he might die. Scorrus was his advisor, and his advice never ran counter to Leopold's impulses to frippery.

Regina had shuddered inwardly to hear Snow echo her father once the blindfold was taken off to show her the grandeur of the garden in celebration. Tomorrow she might die! The queen suspected that there was a little of the father's gaddle flowing in the girl's veins. Everyone clapped and cooed as she ran from one entertainment to the next, seeing only a child overexcited for a special event and not one incapable of maintaining her attention on any matter for more than a handful of minutes. Regina had seen over and over the girl's high maid having to start and restart the dressing of the hair since Snow could not stay still. Time would tell if she matured out of it, or if like her father, it was a flaw of her personality.

Regina was meeting Skin in the farthest room, and he was going to give her the Book. To sink a claw into her so deeply pleased him, that much she had heard in his silly little giggle and saw in the fluttering of his fingers beneath his mouth. Her heels rang out on the tiles of the hallway as she hurried to retrieve what she wanted so desperately, and what she did not want at all. She had hated her mother's Book, kept in the cabinet in the study throughout Regina's childhood. From those pages came the spells that stripped her riding clothes to gowns, dropped branches from trees to ensnare her, even once zipped her mouth closed since her mother was weary of her voice. Regina's voice had a rasp, and her mother wished to hear only the soft cooing of a dove.

Doves! Those had also been on the scroll of entertainments, thirteen imported Alasian doves to be released at the exact moment of Snow's birth. The cost was astronomical. Prince Carlisle had brought them yesterday afternoon. He spoke long at dinner of the trouble in getting the doves through the Draman Forest, what with the centaurs and d'bei in yet another scuffle that set the trees ablaze and rendered the roads impassable. Regina thanked him repeatedly for his sacrifice as was her duty, and concealed her disgust for the king's younger brother. Carlisle was nothing more than a chair swinging, bottle cracking bar fighter who happened to have royal blood. When he had swung down from his carriage, the first thing he did was stare openly at her belly to see if one of the king's seeds had taken root. She had never met a man of greater crudeness. Even drooling Prince Stuart was not so revolting.

The king had not touched her, not once in that fashion. It was the only way that she would agree to the marriage, and he was more than amenable. His heir was his daughter, and he wished no other competitors to the throne. Snow was his pride and joy, the light of his life. He could never love another child like the one he had. Regina was relieved that he did not go back on his word. She did not want him in her bed, or to see any more of his doughy form than she had already.

Once he was the most handsome man in the realm. Only forty-two now, the fourteen years of his reign had transformed him from that divine form to a pudgy, slightly unkempt one. Carlisle had the same look to him. Their younger sister was still trim and put together, but she was the High Guard of the Southold. One could not do that work and be slovenly in figure or spirit. Zara was at the carnival as well, her pale blue eyes tight and angry at the waste of it, shunning a dress for the green-and-black of her guardsman wear and her weasel sitting upon her shoulder. At dinner while Carlisle recounted his noble quest to get the doves to the palace and the king crowed about the tests of strength he had devised for the noble boys to engage in at the party, Zara fixed them both with incredulous stares. The basilisks were rising, which meant the giants were coming, and she had lost a full third of her guard to cuts in the treasury. She was here to petition for funds to cover more guards and some scouts, not enjoyment. The king poured her another drink, since tomorrow they might die.

At last Regina reached the final door in the long hall. She opened it and went inside. The room was nearly bare, used as storage at one point, a sickroom when the other one overflowed at another point, and before that it was a space that the court librarians used for repairs. The shelves along one wall were still packed with books. It was the room that no one knew what to do with exactly, so it did a little of everything. And right now, it was a meeting room. Skin was not yet here.

A Book of her own. She had performed paltry magic with the scraps Skin allotted her until now, namely floating a quill for several seconds and changing the color of her nightgown. The latter had not gone well, since after the red flushed to blue, the fabric disintegrated. Thankfully, she did this after dismissing her maids so she was not suddenly naked before them. Regina was thrilled to have caused any magical effect after so many failed attempts at the spell, although she was more than a little horrified to consider that she might have disintegrated along with it. Her mother made magic look very simple, but that was not the case. Currently at the carnival, Mother was thrilled to be attending it as the mother of the queen. No longer one of many courtiers, she had moved one giant step closer to the center. Instead of revolving around the power points, she was now a power point around which people revolved.

"My Queen," Skin said, and Regina jumped to find him standing behind her. He giggled to have caused a startle. His skin was brown and mottled, with drops of flesh standing upon his cheeks rather than smooth to the surface.

"Where's the Book?" she asked, for nothing was in his hand.

"The Book, dearie? Was I supposed to bring something for the birthday of the little princess?" Once more he giggled. At least he amused himself. "But not so little any longer, is she? No. Has the king chosen suitors among those noble boys? Is he busy, busy, busy making a match?"

"Is this the information you wish in trade for the Book?" Regina asked shortly. She could not be away from the carnival for long, and did not want to indulge his games. Even now, someone might be noticing her absence.

"Oh, child, I wish no trade for the Book. It is a pleasure to do business with you. But I wonder, I wonder, for what purpose do you want this Book? You see, upon the instances we speak, you express such conflicted desires-"

Conflicted desires? How else was she to feel about magic and how it stripped her of her clothes, her freedom, her very own _mouth_? It had made her feel like a plaything, a doll to be changed and set in a corner or at a tea party depending on its owner's fancy. She could not even ride her horse now without a guard following along behind, and people trying to spy over the fence to see the queen's form on horseback. It was bizarre that as a ruler of the land, nothing was in her control any longer.

Skin was waiting for her reply. "My reasons are my business."

"Oh," Skin said in playful disappointment. "Come-come, tell your friend Skin! To banish Prince Carlisle to another realm where he can whitterpate no more to your ears? Maybe you are trying to solve the basilisk problem, or perhaps you simply want to make the king young and handsome again, so that your heart pitter-pitter-patters to see him?"

She swallowed on her revulsion. Her heart had gone to the stablegirl, and her mother took that heart away. It was something that Regina only allowed herself to think about in the dead of night, and rarely even then, to keep herself from screaming. Crossly, she said, "Skin, are you going to bring me the Book or not? I don't have all day to stand in here discussing it with you!"

"Bring you the Book, dearie? How can I bring it when it has been in this room the whole time?" Skin giggled and fluttered his fingers. A book edged out from the shelves. When Regina began to stride to it, Skin held up his hand. At once, her body arrested in place. "Why do you go to the Book, when you should know how to bring the Book to you?"

She was not that strong. Her hand lifted against her will, and then he released her from the invisible bondage. Focusing on the Book, she drew it out smoothly within her mind and floated it to her hand. The actual Book scratched and scraped along the shelf. The spine was dark blue and jeweled, with no lettering upon it. This was going to be far too much weight for her to keep afloat. The quill had felt like an anvil upon her magical pull.

The edge of the spine passed over the shelf. She stared hard at it, coaxing with her mind as it came begrudgingly. Skin watched in quiet amusement, and she hated the sense of mockery. She would float the Book across the room to her hand and wipe the smirk from his mottled brown face!

It promptly tumbled to the floor and landed with a colossal thud that echoed in the bare room. He laughed as she bent to retrieve it. "Well then, child, I must be going! You have a lovely time among those pages. Give my regards to the little princess." And he was gone in a swirl of purple smoke.

Regina clutched the Book, almost wringing it from a mixture of humiliation and triumph. This was going to be the answer to getting back a little of what had been taken from her, what was stillbeing taken from her on a daily basis. Not for much longer would she be the doll in her mother's corner, the sweet young thing upon the king's arm to please the people who wished him to have a queen after so long in mourning for Snow's mother. One day _she_ would call some shot in her life, rather than have all of them called for her. Within these pages was her salvation.

The Book had to be placed in her room, and after that she needed to return swiftly to the carnival. Smile and nod, offer her hand to be kissed, chuckle at jokes and coo about how sweet Princess Snow was in her new birthday dress. Clap at the cutting of the cake and remind the child to thank the givers of her gifts. But later, deep in the night when Regina had as much privacy as her life allowed, she was going to open this Book.

And begin.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Chapter Two: Zara_**

The basilisks were rising.

The puppet show had a basilisk on stage, a silly little green snake with a tail tied into a coil and two big golden eyes. It was doing battle with a guardsman, who waved his sword and flapped his lower jaw as a voice issued from below. "I have no fear of you! Yah! Yah!" A cream-colored tissue flew from the mouth of the basilisk in response, and the guardsman cut it away with his tiny sword.

Zara watched this, and thought_ no_.

Sensing her mood, her weasel Ru-Ru appeared from the flowers. Zara nodded to indicate that she was all right. She and Durim had walked the remains of Ul'uli themselves days before Zara started north to the palace. It was a bustling oasis in the desert, or it had been, as a wayfare for travelers to stop for a drink, a meal, a tumble, or to trade their goods. The desert was full of wayfares, Ul'uli not the grandest but far from the humblest.

Now it was not anything, and its natural springs were poisoned with basilisk venom. Bodies were everywhere, and Ru-Ru hissed as he picked among them. Basilisks killed anyone they came across, and not for reasons of hunger. For the one they needed to whet their appetite for a season, they killed fifty in sport. In the streets and tents and springs were hundreds upon hundreds of bodies, mouths contorted into the same shape of a final, agonized scream. Dozens of basilisks had had to descend on Ul'uli all at once to cause this level of massacre. She had not needed to hear the words of the few survivors to know that this was how it happened. There was no warning or alarm save that of the first screams as the snakes attacked.

To swarm the place en masse . . . usually they hunted solo. Usually they picked off stragglers on roads. Usually Zara received a monthly report of two or three basilisks far deeper in the sands of the Southold than Ul'uli. But that had all changed in the last four years, and it could only mean one thing. She needed to send scouts in the direction of the Far Sea to confirm that the giants were moving. As they moved forward, the basilisks moved forward. But she could not conjure scouts out of thin air, and two years' worth of petitions to the throne had gone unanswered. Now she was here in person, and she could see why. Father would have been so ashamed.

She watched the puppet guardsman swipe at more tissue venom, the little children in the audience gasping. The Basilisk War was eight hundred years in their history, and now just a story to thrill the brats. Had the small figures on stage been a true guardsman and basilisk, the man would be dead. The venom was so powerful that it could travel up the length of a blade and poison him through his hand gripping the handle. One did not fight a basilisk with a sword, for hells' sake! Did people not know this any longer?

They did not. They knew of yupsi truffles and these new fashionable kerchiefs that changed color in the sunlight. They knew of horse races and hats and hairstyles. As she looked at the hundreds of people laughing and chatting at this party, she thought of the hundreds gone silent in Ul'uli. The puppet guardsman defeated the puppet basilisk on stage, running his sword through its throat, and the children clapped. _No_.

"Aaaahhh-aaahhhh!" yelled a man, who came up to the stage clapping as clumsily as a toddler. It took Zara a moment to recognize her twin brother in this insane figure with clothes askew and mussed hair. His buttocks were partially exposed. She did not go to him, although the impulse was strong in her stock-still figure. He still recognized her at times. The children pointed and whispered, hiding giggles behind their chubby hands as attendants ran to retrieve Prince Stuart. The brightest of Father's four children and cut down by a hex to this drooling mess!

He was why the Uls among the guardsmen did not respect Zara. To the Uls, the deformed and the infirm should be taken out into the sand and left there. Tolerating what could not be repaired, giving to one who could never give back, that was a sign of weakness. Stuart made Zara weak to their way of thinking. It was worse that she was his twin, which made it her duty above all to end his misery of a life. Durim had explained that to her one night as she rested her cheek to his muscled shoulder. He would not want his family to pour water down his throat, to feed and change him like he was a young child when he was a man. He would expect his closest sibling to send him to the stars, where he could be whole again.

The attendants fixed her brother's sagging pants and she thought that the Uls had a point. Stuart was a tragedy. He had left their older brothers in the dust at studies, his mind as keen as an arrow point fashioned of unicorn bone. Even Zara could hardly keep up with him. He was two minutes older than she, and it was a shame that he was not older than Leopold and Carlisle. Were Stuart the king and in his sound mind, she would not be up here begging like a streetchild for a scout allotment.

As the next puppet show started, she turned away and sought somewhere else to stand. Most people did not recognize her, seeing the uniform and mistaking her for a common guard of the South here at the party for some reason. Long hours in the sun had bleached her hair and tanned her skin. She was not the soft girl in a gown and jewels that they remembered.

The weasel stalked along in the shrubbery. Her other brothers were on two different ends of the garden, yet both were engaged in similar activities. Stuffing their mouths with truffles and stuffing their eyes with women, Carlisle had a flame-haired serving wench on his knee and Leopold was telling stories to ladies who pretended they had not heard them before. The same blood ran in their veins, Leopold and Carlisle, Stuart and Zara, the same strict father ruled over their youth, but they could not be more different. Her Durim was a man. She could not even begin to picture him at this party, speaking through chocolate-covered teeth and bouncing a woman on his lap. When he rolled Zara onto her back in the darkness, she pulled him close. He deserved it,_ she_ deserved it, for a long day spent in blazing heat, in hunting and decaying bodies. Their lovemaking was a celebration that they had anticipated and fought for and earned, not just one more entertainment in the endless party of their lives.

When she agitated last night for scouts, Carlisle offered her some centaurs. She thought it a bad joke at first. _Centaurs?_ What was she to do with centaurs? He meant it honestly, like centaurs were not by nature as slothful as he was. Her guardsmen would make mincemeat of centaurs! Carlisle promised to speak to King Achax about sending her a fleet of centaurs and Zara did not know what to say at the fantasy world in which he lived. Leopold just drank. Her two oldest brothers were stupid, _stupid_ men, and she missed Stuart even more fiercely in their company.

A gong was struck, and the announcement came that presents would be opened. Zara moved in the gushes of people to the tables and stepped up to the platform where her family was seated. Ru-Ru sat at her feet. The king was helped up to his chair, soused from ale, and the dark-haired young queen was smiling sweetly upon hers. Zara thought that she should plead for Regina's ear, in the hopes that she might have some sway over Leopold. Surely he would still be eager to please his pretty new wife. Or else Zara was going to have to go to Scorrus, and that would be a waste of time. Father had warned them to tread lightly around the man, and never grant him the position of King's Advisor. Then Father died, and Leopold promptly granted it. Zara knew why, since Scorrus always said exactly what one wanted to hear. He would tell her that he'd find money for scouts, and then it would never show.

The first present was brought to the table and given to Snow. It remained to be seen how the girl would turn out, but Zara thought there was some hope. She was not the academic blaze of Stuart before his hex, yet her mind was fertile soil and her soul compassionate. Carlisle's three children were disastrous affairs. The boys Beau and Timon were twins, as that ran in the family, but Zara and Stuart had been close while those two were ever at war. The boys had even fought about who rode a centaur faster, which was ridiculous since of course they had never ridden one at all!

And their older sister Monica had not needed to be hexed to make her a fool. She was making eyes at the young noblemen at the tables below theirs. Some of the noblemen were making eyes back, although they occasionally wandered to Zara. To marry Princess Zara had been the aim of many men. None had succeeded, nor would they. No one would ever allow her to match with Durim, a wayfare peasant's son who worked his way up to second-in-command of the Southold Guard. So she would not match up at all then.

The presents from the family were given first. Snow squealed at the scroll to a new island on the Sweet Sea. It was created by an enchantment and filled with enchantments, a place full of fancies to fritter away the time. Leopold beamed that his gift was so well received. From the queen came a trunk of beautiful dresses for Snow to wear upon her island retreat. Carlisle's gift was next, and it was a d'bei wand. Zara tensed as Snow gave it a wave. This gift never would have been given were Father still alive. Tread lightly around Scorrus. Be wary of magic. Deal not in centaurs and d'bei. He had also told them that the love of the people for their rulers depended on the amount of food on their plates. The princes and princesses of a realm should not be letting out their belts while the peasants tightened theirs. Father may as well have been speaking to the wind. The last harvests had not been good, yet her brothers were gaining weight.

D'bei spells were of fairy origin, and the wands meant for fairy hands. Little of them worked in transfer for humans. This wand had been infused with a little spell to make hair grow. Snow waved and laughed and waved again, beards growing low to the ground on the noblemen while women gasped at sheets of hair falling to their knees. A man with a tall black hat ran forward and cried, "Princess Snow! I beg you for kindness!" and removed the hat to show his bald head.

"No one should ever _beg_ me for kindness," Snow said, and waved it. Curly black hair sprouted upon his head and he cried out in joy as people clapped. Leopold clapped as well, but his brow furrowed that perhaps the wand was better liked than the enchanted island.

A painting of a lake was brought out from Prince Stuart, who had neither painted the work nor was in attendance at the table. His behavior was too inappropriate. His bastard daughter Chella, who he fathered on Lady Regan just before his hex, was sitting at a table below and indicated that she chose it in his stead. Chella was the token leadership of the Easthold, a girl of seventeen who had her father's sandy hair.

Snow gave her gratitude to Stuart's daughter for the painting as a servant brought forth the gifts from Zara. The first was a weasel, the runt of a litter who would never be any good for hunting. One leg was a little shorter than the others. A female and very affectionate, she had a white belly and reddish-brown fur upon her back. This had been Durim's suggestion, a weasel for a pet in order to keep the Southold ever in the face of the young princess. Rather than kill it for the deformity, give it this use. Snow tickled the animal's chin in delight. "Thank you, Aunt Zara!"

"You are welcome," Zara said. A servant brought forth the second gift, which was a bow and quiver. Within the quiver were arrows with unicorn bone heads. Everything was decorated with feathers and beads to make it look like a gift for a child, but all could be stripped away to the true weapon it was.

Leopold cried in jest, "Sister, you are trying to make a guardsman of the crown princess!" This gift had not interested the girl as much, although she thanked Zara once more. But it served its purpose, to make the Southold present at this party and in her life. The little weasel stayed at the side of the princess all through the gift giving and meal. Snow played at names and fed her little bites of meat.

The unwrapped gifts were piled on a table, and the bow was overwhelmed. There was so little that Zara could do, yet she would not let the Southold fade from mind. Her agitation was hard to contain in the merriment all around her. This world did not stop at the Southold Tower! It went on and on to the Far Sea, and while the people in this garden laughed and ate, while they daubed their lips with napkins and compared kerchiefs in the light, while they made eyes and argued and drank and sang . . .

. . . the basilisks were _rising_.


	3. Chapter 3

**_Chapter Three: Sisaxa_**

_Once upon a time, the Sun had three wives who were sisters._

It would not last long. She looked to the ceiling and counted while he puffed and grunted above her, sweat rolling down his bright red forehead and a miasma of ale exuding from his breath to envelop them. They had been given one of the finest rooms in the palace for their stay, as befitted Carlisle's position. It was not _the_ finest, and she wondered how much grander were the rooms of the king and queen and princess. One day she would walk into them and know. One day when they were hers.

_The oldest sister-wife was named Alvari, and she was good. Her children were the Green fairies, and they were also good._

The king and queen and princess were within their rooms, sleeping on _her_ beds and warmed by _her _fires. They did not know that these were borrowed things. They thought the beds and fires were theirs. In fact they were Sisaxa's. Today she served Carlisle in the garden, refreshing his mug with ale and holding an umbrella over his head to keep off the sun. _Her_ garden. _Her_ ale. _Her_ umbrella. _Her_ shade. All of this had been taken from her, and she was going to take it back.

_The middle sister-wife was named Notomo, and she was bad. Her children were the Red fairies, and they were also bad._

Every centaur's name contained the letter x within it. The d'bei had done that with the first centaurs they created, and the centaurs continued it once they broke away to govern themselves. Was it because they did not know names without x? That was likely. They were not bright creations. It was also likely that they_ did_ know, but did what had always been done since that was how it was done. They drank and feasted and fought and fucked and bolted since these things felt good. Thinking deeply did not feel good. Coming up with a name they did not already know would require a deeper thought than a centaur wanted to think.

_The youngest sister-wife was named Talena, and she was mad. Her children were the Blue fairies, and they were also mad._

Carlisle thought that Sisaxa was a centaur. It had taken the better part of a decade to load the wand with the spell to transform her, and she damned the others for muting her magic. Changing her name was the only easy part of the process.

No one at the party had suspected that she was a centaur. If they had, she would have been removed. Centaurs were not allowed out of the Draman Forest. But no one suspected, not even with the x in her name. Many humans had an x of their own, so it indicated nothing. Most centaurs had red hair, but often so did humans.

He loved centaur women in his bed. They were like him, loud and crude and earthy, content with three-minute jousts between the sheets. He seized and shouted then, sweat dripping off his nose onto her, and then he rolled off. His eyes closed, and that she counted, too. She wished that he would go to sleep after these jousts, so that she could bathe and wash his grime from her skin. But that was when he liked to talk about his feelings. It would start when she reached thirty.

_The fairies of the Green lived in green places. Upon mounds of grass, within the emerald caverns, beneath the Sweet Sea, they did their good work. The fairies of the Red lived in red places. Upon the fields of battle, within the glow of sunset, beneath the Ruby River, they did their bad work. The fairies of the Blue lived in blue places. Upon the moon-kissed earth, within the air of day, beneath any drop of water, they did their mad work. That was why the Blue were the most powerful of the fairies, since blue is everywhere._

Thirty.

"A year and a day," Carlisle moaned.

"I know, my darling," Sisaxa said, and placed her hand in comfort upon his chest. "It is not fair."

He moved her hand away since he was overheated from his little exertion. "A year and a day from his birth to mine! To gauge our worth for the throne only by the order in which our births follow is injustice."

How hard he would defend that injustice should it have favored him over Leopold! Sisaxa took a kerchief from the nightstand and daubed his brow. He ran his hand fondly over her overblown breasts. It was an effect of the spell, this curvaceous body and shock red hair, the fiery red horse she could turn into as well. She missed her own narrow, darker form of blue wisp. Sighing, Carlisle said, "How do centaurs do it?"

"A crowning?" Sisaxa asked. She smiled. "Oh, but I should not tell you."

"Oh, but you should!" Carlisle cried. "I will give you a present, and I will never tell anyone what you have told me. Tell me what your heart desires."

_Every inch of this world_. "I want to wash my hair in the queen's bath and eat yupsi truffles until I am quite ill."

He laughed. "Is the bath in here not big enough for you?"

No, it was not. Only the biggest was big enough. Only the best truffles, the hottest water, the finest scents, the softest towels with which to dry.

"I will take you to the Shimmer tomorrow, where you can bathe in style," Carlisle said, since what she wanted would always be second to what was convenient to him. The Shimmer was a public bath for those of means. She smiled to show him that she approved of this compromise and he was pleased. "Now tell me!"

"An ugly tale for after love."

"An ugly tale that will be told," Carlisle insisted. "Irregardless."

That was not even a word! A princely education yet it made no dent. "The King or Queen of the Centaurs grows gray in the mane and tail. It is time for pasture, but first a successor must be named. Which shall it be of these three colts? Which shall it be?"

He loved his stories like a child at bedtime, and echoed, "Which shall it be?"

"The oldest for being oldest?" Sisaxa queried. "The middle for being crafty? The youngest for being sweet? Tell me, Carlisle, who would you pick?"

"The middle. For the oldest has done nothing to earn it by only being older; the youngest may be sweet but sweet does not lead. Am I right?"

"No!" she cried playfully, and he chortled. "To the cage, the old King cries! To the cage, the old Queen cries! Within that cage put these colts, these three colts of mine. Within that cage put these swords, these three swords of mine. Now lift those swords, you colts of mine, and slay your three to one."

He turned and propped up his head on his arm, looking at her in amazement. "Is this how they do it? The siblings are actually set to killing one another for the throne?"

"The throne is an honor for the most royal of royals. The one who stops at nothing to sit that seat: this is the one and the one only the centaurs shall respect. Who do you think will win within this cage? It is not the oldest for being oldest; it is not the babe for being sweet. It is-"

"The crafty," Carlisle said.

"Strength," Sisaxa corrected. She squeezed his flabby bicep. "Physical strength." She tapped upon his skull. "Crafty strength. Who could win among them? Only the smart and strong. And the winner . . . the winner feels no fear going into that cage, because the winner knows that he or she is going to win. They know it in their heart of hearts. They will bring their honor to the throne, the honor the siblings do not have, and the throne will bring its honor to them."

He fell onto his back to roll in her words. "A cage match. I would have won, were we a family of centaurs."

Princess Zara would have gutted him like a fish, Leopold as well, and then she would have gutted herself rather than kill her twin. So the winner would have been babbling Prince Stuart and the centaurs respect him as strong. If he were not strong, he would not have been the only one to come out of the cage. So they would dress and feed and fete him, and celebrate his nonsensical words as godly. They would place women in his bed and hope he still knew what to do with them, in order to create new children with x's in their names for a cage match in the distant future. They would do this since this was how it had always been done; to change it was a deep thought and a deep thought was disagreeable. The d'bei had had no idea what they were creating when they created centaurs.

"I would have won," Carlisle whispered, his brow furrowing, and her heart gladdened to see the wheels beginning to turn in his flabby mind.

_The Green fairies were good, and their goodness was great. The Red fairies were bad, and their badness was greater. The Blue fairies were mad, and their madness was greatest. Sometimes they were good and sometimes they were bad, and when one is not one way or another, one can do anything. The Green and the Red looked upon the Blue, and they were jealous._

In the morning, she received her gift of the Shimmer. He had not paid for the best services, only one in the middle since he figured she would not know the difference.She knew the difference. Into the hot water she sank, hot but not hottest; from the tray she selected truffles yet they were not yupsi.

He was no doubt in an embrace room giving some woman a sweaty ride of three minutes, and then to fall into the pool with Sisaxa and splash her. His manhood would still be deflating. Sometimes he called it the King, and told Sisaxa to kiss the little monarch. She was tempted to change to her true form with its razor-sharp teeth and show him what a Blue thought of humans. But that would not return to her what had been taken.

When he splashed into_ her_ pool, she laughed and asked how was his ride. He smiled with some guilt and said, "Centaur women do not usually like to share their men."

Usually they flayed them alive for betrayal. A claimed centaur man knew better than to visit his manhood upon another woman. Sisaxa pushed a truffle between his lips and snapped to the attendant to bring wine. The girl scurried since the wine was for the prince; she_ should_ scurry for Sisaxa. "But you are not an ordinary man."

"I am a prince," Carlisle confirmed.

"Oh, we have lost our princes to scorned women," Sisaxa said. "Yes, many times."

"Yet I remain unscathed."

_For now_. She walked her fingers down his chest. "There is a special quality to this prince, this prince who rides his centaur mare. She may think that the world would be better for him to live. Let him ride women as he will, she might think! For he is special, and the world should ride upon his axis."

_The world turns, it turns in one direction. The Red create a problem, and the Green solve it. The Red create a new problem, and the Green create a new solution. Ere the world turns, it turns in one direction. The bad is greater than the great of the good, but the good will win in the end. One direction it goes, one direction only . . . were it not for the Blue. In madness the Green might create a problem, and the Red might solve it. In madness the Red might create a problem, and the Green fail in solutions. The world in madness turns in the wrong direction, so the Red and Green joined their powers and stopped the Blue._

Stopped her. Strained her magic through a sieve, and that last to remain was what she bore. That was all d'bei bore, the clots caught atop the grates. Years she had studied this prince from afar, the way he led the Westhold, the women he invited to his bed. And years more it took to gather her magic in reply. She fed him truffles since he liked to be served; she told him stories since he liked to listen. She let him think three minutes were satisfying, that a woman liked nothing more than to be squashed by his bulbous form and lathered in his sweat. She nudged him, nudged him, nudged him to think of himself as that special prince cheated of his throne, when in truth, it was Sisaxa cheated of hers. One day it would grow too big, the size of the specialness in his heart; it would burst and he would take his brother's seat. Then she would take his. He was almost full to bursting.

"I love you," Carlisle said through a mouthful of candy.

"And I love you," Sisaxa said, for until the day she stepped into the palace as her own, as it was, as it would ever be, she did.


	4. Chapter 4

**_Chapter Four: Chella_**

She was supposed to have been the only one!

Even two months later while packing for the Sweet Sea, she still seized in anger while ruminating upon it. He had promised, he had _promised_ that she would be the only one with the Lorvais Lavender, but once she stepped into the garden party, it was to see another in the hand of Lady Dilathea Pennetin. One in the hand of Princess Snow would have been fine. That only glorified Chella's possession, to have what the crown princess had. One in the hand of Silly Dilly? It cheapened what made Chella so proud, returned her to just another lady when she was Getty now.

If someone had gasped that a giant was coming, Dilly would have looked down. If someone had gasped that a dwarf was coming, Dilly would have looked up. If Robert gave her ten apples and took away three, she could not answer how many she had left. She _could_ answer if Robert was handsome. When Chella thought about the internal topography of Dilly's mind, she imagined a stark desert scene with the occasional tumbleweed blowing through. Her family was of little note, shared little royal blood and held little holdings. For them to share kerchiefs at this grand event! All through the party, Chella steamed like a kettle. It was an injustice the likes of which the world had never seen.

Oh, there were wars and pillages and floods and other misfortunes. She knew that. This was only an atrocity of the personal sort, which she remembered later once that kerchief in Dilly's hand was no longer in her line of sight. Chella was not so self-centered as to think that two girls sharing the same kerchiefs was the equivalent of a war. But wars were things of schoolbooks, and the crime of the kerchiefs was the breath and pulse and blood of her _life_.

Mother had also been outraged, and sent an angry letter to Orrs Lorvais himself! He should know of the treachery perpetrated by his own son James. Since the postman rode away with the letter, Chella imagined James cast out by his family in shame. His handsome face downcast, his silver tongue quieted, his quick hands shoved into his pockets to finger his only coin . . . yes, that was fitting. He had humiliated her. At last, at _last_ she was moving up in this world, and he had kicked her back to where she started.

She was _Getty_. That meant she received a cut above what was given to everyone else. A cut below what was given to the royal circle, naturally, this she understood and did not resent. She was only a bastard daughter, after all, not trueborn. But she should not be treated on par with _Dilly_ any longer. She was Lady Richella Light Tenzing, granddaughter of Earl Tenzing of Hearst, daughter of Prince Stuart of the Astors and Lady Regan Tenzing of Hearst, and most of all, Getty of the Easthold!

Of that last title she was desperately proud. Scorrus had pushed King Leopold to grant this to her, since she did so well at her studies. In truth she did not, but she studied a little harder after that for a few days. It was a great honor for a bastard child to be given one of the Holds of the Ryme. She knew little of the East at the time of the offer, having grown up just south of the palace itself in Hearst. The East had always seemed wild, a place of pirates and riff-raff, with its only place of note being the Sweet Sea. And that was hardly in the true east! Neither was the East Tower. The land grew wilder the further one went to the ocean, so one simply did not go.

But she could not turn down a _Hold_. Scorrus sweetly tempered her fears of governing; she was not to grow one furrow in her brow over it or he would be quite distressed. The Council of the East Tower handled a large share of the work. But these were old men like himself, he said, old men who knew their jobs but brought no grace to it. The people of the South had Princess Zara as their figurehead, and what they needed from her was not grace but strength. The people of the West needed the very opposite of grace, and the old man's eyes twinkled as Chella looked aghast and then giggled at this slur upon Prince Carlisle. But how clever was this appointment! The people of the West respected a man who would sit down at their taverns and drink ale with them, appearing to be one of them in all but blood. That was Prince Carlisle, who could make himself look at home in their company. The people loved him greatly for it.

Now of the North, Scorrus said, and that quieted Chella's giggles. Her hexed father held the Northold, although in truth his Council bore the work. The people of the North were quiet and private. You could know a northernman for fifty years and never learn his last name. This was perfect for Prince Stuart. What his problems were the people of the North did not consider their business.

And the East needed grace. Its people were not all riff-raff and pirates. They were good farming folk and shopkeepers and industry workers, most of them, and it was not right for them to have only a Council of surly old men for a figurehead. They needed grace and beauty and intelligence, someone to represent them as an equal part of the kingdom. Scorrus had gone over and over the possible appointments to the Easthold. Princess Monica was a girl of the West through and through. Princes Beau and Timon were too young. Lady Artemi had been a strong candidate, yet . . . yet her grace and intelligence were not matched by beauty. Lord Castor had been another candidate, yet . . . yet his grace and beauty were not matched by intelligence. It pained Scorrus to say this of them, for he was a kindly old man. The Easthold deserved all three, and Lady Richella Light Tenzing had them. She could be the pretty face at the races in the Royals' Box, the intelligent voice reading the King's Proclamations on the occasions that they came forth, the graceful form on the dance floor with the men and women of monetary consequence in the East.

Getty Richella, on par with High Guard Zara, Mounsen Carlisle, and Quyn Stuart. Only in this position were they equal, but to be equal with them at all! In any capacity! Mother had been dizzy at the offer. It did not cross their minds to say no, for how could they? A starving man did not turn down a fish. Hearst was so tiny that it did not even show on some maps of the Ryme. Mother had gotten herself a daughter by the Prince, which moved her up in affairs of society, and now that daughter would be _Getty_!

Chella was the grace and the beauty and the intelligence, the little that she had to do for her role. Her apartments in the East Tower were stunning, and she could look out her windows in every direction for miles and miles. Even from that height, she could not see the ocean to the east. The tower once had been much deeper in the east, and pirates torched it. So now it was only lightly in the east, like the Sweet Sea.

The Council only allowed her to travel certain roads that they could ensure were safe, and they were right around the Tower. Those were grand roads with grand shops, and when she had to swing off those roads for some reason, she knew to close the shades. She had lived in the East for a year now, yet seen very little of it. As she was not inclined to curiosity, it troubled her not at all.

But she missed her friends, even Silly-Dilly at times. She wished that she could show them these grand shops, this beautiful Tower in which she ruled. To come back for the birthday party of Princess Snow as Getty had been a long-anticipated event, and Chella was determined to do it in style. To amaze these friends who outranked her all through childhood! The Council gave her an enormous budget for clothes and necessities. Every stitch had been an agony in its selection, and everything ruined over a kerchief. Oh, but not all ruined. Noble boys who had hardly looked her way before now lingered in consideration.

The Council gave her another enormous budget for her jaunt to the Sweet Sea. It was only a weeklong trip, yet she was allowed to spend whatever she wanted on fancies. She filled two entire trunks and had them hoisted on her carriage, and then she sat in her apartment window and waited for the caravan. This one would bear only the girls; the boys had a caravan of their own. It would be grand fun at the island, no parents, only chaperones and guards.

The servants had strict orders for when the royal carriage and the caravan turned down the drive to the South Tower. To line up sharp outside the doors, with glasses of lemonade and trays of yupsi truffles! To offer the chamber room should anyone need to relieve themselves, and the reclining room should the princess be weary of traveling. To play music and offer each one a Ve-ve rose corsage, with the princess getting the grandest, Chella and Princess Monica the second grandest, and everyone else the least grand.

She did not recognize the caravan when one first appeared on the road below, since it did not have the dazzling royal carriage in the lead. But the horses stepped so sharply, the guards so great in number, and ever did this caravan close in on the Tower so she thought it might be the girls indeed. And the idiot she felt then! On some roads, it was not wise to advertise the presence of a royal. So this was a very fine carriage indeed, but not one that announced the identity of its inhabitant. People would assume the caravan was full of rich traders. Now it would look like rich traders and the Getty, which was a common sight anyway going to horse races and balls. Chella flew downstairs to warn the servants that the caravan was arriving.

It went perfectly, and she was proud. The princess did not need to rest, as the trip had gone without the slightest mishap. After visits to the chamber and sweet treats enjoyed, the corsages put on, Princess Snow beckoned Chella to ride along in _her_ carriage for the last leg of the journey! Chella graciously offered her own to the lower-ranking girls, somewhat crammed in the other six carriages of the caravan. The girls divvied up the newly available seats, four climbing in and everyone pleased to have extra foot room.

Chella got into the first carriage with her heart pounding from joy. The driver cracked his whip and they slid along the Tower drive to the road. It was only a three-hour journey to the pier, and Chella the last pick-up along the way. Lady Artemi and Princess Monica were within this carriage as well, which was big enough for six, and both of them were laughing about girls in other carriages until Princess Snow chided, "That is most unkind!" and they quieted.

"Pray tell of these enchantments," Chella said to change the subject. She knew that cattiness was not a trait that Snow enjoyed. Nor in truth did Chella, since she had too often been the butt of it. But not any longer!

"Oh, it will be grand fun," Snow said, with a grateful look since this topic did not concern rudeness. A guard upon a horse tapped the window, and the girls lowered the shades. Outside, they could hear the taps on the windows of the other carriages. The road that had brought the caravan up from the south was well guarded in almost every place; the one carrying them from here to the Sweet Sea had some minor rough spots.

Once the last shade was down, Snow continued. "Hidden in the sand is a chest of d'bei wands! We can follow clues to track it down like pirates if we wish, or swim out to rocks and listen to the mermaids sing. My father says there is a magic waterfall on the island that transforms your appearance entirely. Trees that grow candy, how I want to visit those! There are actual fairy homes in gardens-"

"Tell her what will be most fun! The Red fairies, not the Green," Princess Monica interrupted. "They have only little hexes and their effects will not last for long-"

"Monica!" Snow chastised. "You and I have never gotten to know our Uncle Stuart, nor has Chella with him as her father. I am not going to hex anyone even in jest. The truth of it is not remotely amusing."

"Well, but I shall," said Monica, unperturbed. Chella would not. No one even knew the manner of her father's hex, but every effort to mitigate it had failed in the seventeen years since her birth. The day she entered the world, Prince Stuart's mind left it. Chella returned the topic to friendlier enchantments, and they rode on. In time Monica brought up boys and who had caught her fancy at the garden party. Lord Leroy won nearly every strength contest and she was going to see if she could get a love potion from a Red on the island. It would not last long, but she just needed long enough to entrance him! The other girls looked away.

The carriage stopped sharply, and the driver cracked his whip. "Move!" Yet the carriage did not move, not after he yelled this twice more. A boy was crying out in reply, although his words were indiscernible. Guards rode past the carriage, and Chella was utterly embarrassed that the first mishap of this journey was happening in the East.

She lifted the curtain to see what was the matter. A grim sight met her eyes. This was not a pretty road like the ones on which she shopped. Gray buildings sagged against one another, and men in rough and dirty clothing were sitting upon the curb. One was drinking from a mug, and the liquid to spill down his chin did not look like water. A woman was cuffing a small child, her uncombed hair wild about her head and the child's hair even wilder.

"Stop blocking the road!" the driver shouted. "Guards, remove him!"

"Is that boy hurt?" the princess asked in concern. "It sounds like he is in pain."

Girls in another carriage began to scream. Alarmed, Chella turned around to lift the shade behind her head. Ragged, filthy men were fighting the guards to keep them away, swords clashing as the girls were being dragged from the carriage of the Getty! The princess gasped to see Dilly have her chin lifted for inspection, and then she was knocked to the ground so that the man could look at another girl.

Chella wanted to die. This was just like the kerchief, an embarrassment and worse since she ruled here and for this to happen before the princess! Everything was being ruined! Opening the carriage door in a temper, she stepped out and screamed at the men, "What are you doing? I am your Getty and you will unhand those girls at _once_!"

"Getty, get back in the-"

A sack was pulled over her head and she was jerked from her feet. She screamed, the fabric foul and filthy against her lips. Thrown on her stomach over a horse, something pinned down her back to hold her there. Then the horse began to run, and she fainted.


	5. Chapter 5

**_Chapter Five: Regina_**

The Book was killing her.

She had never thought of herself as a foolish person. One at her mother's mercy, yes, one whose will was often overridden, yes, but not because of foolishness. She could read and figure and dance, ride and sing and jest. In her brief affair of the heart with the stablegirl, she had proven that she was talented at bedsports.

She would not think the girl's name. She would _not_. Nor would she picture her face or remember the touch of her hands. She would not think of any of it, and that would keep her from screaming to have lost it. But she had been good at that, too. Her accomplishments were many.

The Book, however, was making a fool of her.

It was pathetic that she had to find her solace in spells that went wrong. That was because so often nothing happened at all. So when a fire engulfed a footstool or a shoe followed Regina around the room for the express purpose of kicking her in the bottom, she rejoiced that she had done _something_, if not remotely what she intended.

Why was this not working? She had started at page one and failed, determined that she would not move to page two until she mastered the first, and fifty tries later was on page two out of boredom and desperation. When page two did not work, she moved on to page three, then ten and forty-two, and now she just skipped about as the mood took her to fail on some new page. Some at the back were stuck together, and she could not pry them apart.

Each spell she approached in the same studious fashion by reading it thoroughly three times. First the ingredients: bay leaves, cowslip, cat whisker, drop of blood, sun-warmed stone, snapdragon, sea salt, water, et cetera . . . some spells had fourteen ingredients and others fifty, some were easy to obtain and others damn near impossible. Unicorn sperm? Dwarf droppings? Tears of moon? She skipped those spells. Her maids were running around in enough agitation as it was after cat whiskers and cowslip and snapdragons. If Regina added _unicorn sperm_ to the list, she believed that their little brains might burst.

After the ingredients, she read the lengthy instructions on how to mix them. It was not like a stew, where one simply tossed everything into the cauldron and let it do its work over high heat. The bay leaves _had_ to be first; the cat whisker _had_ to be last. The fire beneath the cauldron _had_ to be of this size; the moon above _had_ to be at this stage.

And then there were the incantations, nonsense words often strung together into nonsense rhymes, a stanza spoken after the bay leaves but _before_ the blood, another stanza_ exactly_ as the sun-warmed stone touched the water, the third once everything was in and had steeped for ten minutes _precisely_.

If it all went as it should, the power of that spell should settle into her blood, as easy to access as lifting a finger. But all was not going well. It was going miserably, and she had had to throw the shoe from the window to make it stop kicking her. That was annoying. She'd liked that shoe.

Skin must have mentioned that Regina was interested in magic, because Mother cried after the meeting of the War Council that that was just adorable. It was completely inappropriate and so perfectly Mother to do that, make a mockery of Regina in the guise of sweetness.

The most powerful witches, warlocks, fairies, sorcerers, and magicians in the Ryme had descended upon the palace to discuss the matter of Getty Chella's abduction. The doors to the War Council cracked open to admit them to a room that only servants had entered for the last two hundred years in order to battle dust bunnies. Regina had been embarrassed for Leopold, so out of his element in this event that he spent more time arranging the hors d'oeuvres and selecting wines than preparing for the matter at hand. She wanted a seat in the War Council to listen to the others, but one was not granted her. After all, the height of her magical prowess was enchanting a shoe to kick someone, and that was neither very threatening nor was it known to anyone save herself.

Mother was among those most powerful mages to flood the War Council. It was afterwards at tea that she tittered about Regina's elementary attempts at magic, and demanded before a table of others that Regina treat them to a show. A show! Like Regina was a party clown with a magical trick or two up her sleeve, and a dozen others that weren't magic at all but sleight of hand. Outwardly she smiled and demurred; inwardly she was _seething_. Had there been an unattended shoe nearby, she would have been hard-pressed not to flick her finger and make it nail her mother in the ass.

"Oh, magic is very much like gardening," harrumphed the ancient warlock Merkle. He had been dipping his beard into his tea and sucking the drops from it. Regina thought this was quite disgusting. "Do you know how, Queen Regina?"

"No, please tell me," said Regina politely. Her mother passed a pointed look to Regina's throat, to indicate the rasp was too prominent.

The old man banged his hand in delight upon the table. "It's all about weeds. Weeds, yes! A gardener must spend his time plucking out weeds to give the promising, strong shoots room to grow. Every seed wants to grow, but not every seed can. And magic, yes! Magic is much the same way. Everyone wants magic, but the hard work of it weeds them out. The only ones left are the strong shoots. Yes, for every incoming class of two hundred to the colleges, all those bright faces and eager hands all wanting to learn magic, there will only be a half dozen who grow. A half dozen of two hundred, yes! And of that half dozen, five will be of no true consequence in magic. Only the sixth rises higher, and many years, many years indeed, many years there is no _sixth_ at all." He dipped his beard into his tea and swirled it around. Then he sucked at it heartily.

"What have you accomplished?" asked the sorceress Celeste, whose invitation to the War Council had more to do with Leopold's liking of her prettiness than her skill. Regina said that she was only a beginner, hoping to divert interest. The conversation devolved into stories of failed witches and warlocks, their embarrassingly bad results from spells, and the incompetent state of Regina's generation in general.

It was late at night now, and she was flipping through the book for something to do about Getty Chella. The information from the War Council had filtered out: no one had asked for ransom for the missing Getty; no one was claiming responsibility for the abduction; no one witnessed in what direction she was carried away. Investigators were poring over the local Red offender registry, and the preliminary results were unpromising. What was the_ purpose_ of this crime? Were it revenge, then her body would have been found; money and a demand would have been made. Everyone suspected pirates were involved, but as they were allowed fairly free reign along the Dark Waters to the east, what grudge could they possibly bear against their inoffensive Getty?

There was a locator spell in the Book, yet no doubt this had been tried by others. That would have been the first recourse by those on the War Council. A scout was being sent out to the Draman Forest for a seer, though they were terribly hard to find. Pipples of the Green offered an amulet that when worn led a person to his or her missing true love. The problem was that no one loved Chella in that way. Shail of the Red offered to call down a hex upon the perpetrator of the crime, but killing him did Chella less than good should she be locked up in his cellar. Not to mention that it was very hard to hex an unknown assailant. A rider was headed to the Southold to deliver orders for the Guard to report to the Crown and join the search for Chella.

Regina flipped back and forth and back again, reading the names of spells and dismissing them. The palace was quiet, and the only sound came from the crackling of the fire. Her desk was cluttered with ingredients and potions, a testimony to so many failed attempts. She glanced at them dismally, thinking that at this point, approaching the level of a party clown was enviable.

The pages turned. No, she did not want to create bindings, and the ingredients numbered no less than three score. No, she had no need of shrinking someone, or of growing someone to gargantuan size as was the spell on the opposite page. The incantation for invisibility was extremely long and complex, and the asterisk after it led to a footnote warning that one misspoken syllable would result in the permanent invisibility of the person to attempt it.

She was going to be weeded out.

That hurt. She closed her eyes to imagine her nights without these attempts. But what else was she to do? Read away the rest of her life? Prick her fingers while making endless needlepoint pillows? Her days were filled with meaningless activities and she could not bear to think of her nights the same way. Digging her fingers into the pages, she rifled through. Tears were hot under her eyelids. One more spell. She would try one more rotten spell in this Book and fail it, and then she would give this up and make a pillow. She would sew every stitch with such hatred that anyone to sleep upon it would have _nightmares_.

When she opened her eyes to look at the spell to seal her doom, she had to wipe the tears away first. Then she read the scant directions for the Spell of Lebrea, whose effects were summed up as _a guide_. So that was what she would fail at then, creating a map for when she was lost in a forest or city. That was a joke. The queen never had a chance to get lost, not with a coterie of other people always about wherever she went.

The ingredients for the map were minimal. A pinch of sea salt. A blue ribbon. Six red petals. Warm water. Everything was to be mixed into a goblet with the sea salt last, and as it fell in, she was to call _Lebrea_. That was all. It was the easiest spell in the Book that she had seen, and now it was her chance to fail at this one, too.

Swiftly, she went about gathering these things. Regina wanted this to be over. Into a goblet she dropped a blue ribbon loosed from a dress in the closet. The petals she plucked from the bouquet in her window, which the maids changed every day. Warm water came from the sink. Then she sat at her desk and took up a pinch of sea salt.

The number of pillows she could make until she died at eighty or ninety was incredible. People would coo and cry over these creations, how sweet, how intricate. No one would ever know how much bitterness had gone into each one. Feeling the prick of a million needles sinking into her fingers, Regina dropped the pinch of salt into the goblet and said, "Lebrea."

No parchment appeared to be her map; nothing happened at all. Of _course_ nothing had happened. She was a weed. It was time to start a pillow.

There was a sound behind her. Grabbing the knife upon her desk, Regina whirled around with her heart leaping to her throat in fear. She expected someone to abduct her like Getty Chella. But no one was standing there in menace. A figure was crouched on the floor, a girl in a dark blue gown with silver thread and buttons. Her hands were up to shield her face, a silver chain extending from cuffs upon her wrists. Honey blonde hair spilled over her back and shoulders. In terror, she cried, "Don't strike me again! Please!"

"What are you doing in my room? How did you get in here?" Regina demanded.

"Please!" A little blood was running from her left nostril. She looked to be about nineteen or twenty years old.

Regina lowered the knife. "How did you get _in_ here? Past the guards?"

Lowering her hands slowly, the girl said, "You're not . . . you're not him." She looked around the room in confusion and distress. "Where am I?"

"You are in the apartments of the Queen of the Ryme!" Regina exclaimed. Switching the knife for a kerchief, she extended it. The girl was very beautiful, even with the thin trail of blood from her nose. "I am not going to strike you. I only want to know how you got here. Do you have a name?"

"Le- Lebrea."

Regina sat down hard upon her chair. She had done it wrong again, just like with the shoe! When Lebrea did not take the kerchief, Regina leaned forward with the intention of pressing it to her bloody nose. Lebrea backed away in fright, frantic to get away, and hit the foot of the bed. There she shrank into herself.

"It's all right," Regina soothed. The girl looked at her in distrust. Her eyes were purple. True purple, royal purple, a very queer color for an iris. "Who did you think I was? What man?"

"The one who last summoned me from the Book to teach him magic," Lebrea whispered. Regina came over the carpet with one hand out to show her peaceful intentions, and pressed the kerchief to Lebrea. The chains clinked as she took it.

"What was his name?" Regina asked.

"Vicouth."

_Vicouth_. That was a name from the history books! He had hexed the Quyn of the north to death and tried to seize the Hold for himself many centuries ago. With an army of only a hundred soldiers! The Crown soundly defeated him. "You taught Vicouth the Crazed?"

"Yes." The girl glanced around in fear, like she expected to find him in the shadows.

"He's been dead for five hundred years," Regina said. "And he beat you? Why?"

She pressed the kerchief to her bloody nose. "I told him what he did not wish to hear. I am the guide of the Book. I know what magic can do, and what it cannot do."

"What did he wish not to hear? Will you tell me?"

"He wanted to rule over all of the north, but he had trouble rallying people to his cause. Few but malcontents wished to fight for him. Vicouth wanted not to battle, but for me to give him a spell that made anyone who saw him fall in love. Then they would simply give him the Hold, or even the Crown of the Ryme itself. But no spell can overpower the entire world. He believed that I was withholding the spell to do this. So he denied me food and drink and sleep in the fortnight leading to the battle, and then beat me on its eve when I still did not produce what he wanted. So this . . . this is in the distant past to you."

"He died in that battle, and his soldiers were slain to the last man," Regina said. She retreated to her desk, where an apple was sitting from the previous night's attempt to transform it into an orange. The other eleven had exploded. Setting it down by Lebrea, she filled a goblet with water and put it by the apple. "Why didn't you eat it?"

"You did not grant permission."

Bewildered, Regina said, "Eat it, and drink. Please." As Lebrea ate ravenously, Regina went to her sitting room where there was a box of yupsi truffles. When she returned with it, she asked, "Why are you chained?"

Lebrea swallowed, the apple nearly gone and the goblet drained dry. "So that I am forced to do your will. The key is in your pocket."

Slipping her hand into the pocket of her robe, Regina was startled to pull out a silver key. "So you are a slave to this Book? Who _are_ you? A fairy?"

"No fairy. I was a farm girl long ago, even before the centaurs walked this earth. Myself and others from our village were stolen to be the Lebreas of the Thirteen Books. Some were killed by masters like Vicouth. In others, the page of the spell was ripped out and lost. Over the years, I have known of the owners of ten other Books, and none still bore the spell of Lebrea."

Regina wanted to learn magic, but not from a beaten slave. This was distasteful. "Did none of your masters ever free you?"

"Yes, some of them."

"And you stayed?"

"Where am I to go? My parents and brothers are no longer even dust; our village has been swallowed up by time. I stay with the Book. It is the only home I have now, even when I am unbound. Without the chains, I cannot be forced to teach spells I deem not prudent for a witch or warlock's purpose. With the chains, I teach them, and watch their ambitions go up in flames. I am the spells and the spells are me. I am their voice. I am the guide. Are you new to magic?"

"Yes, very new," Regina said, and it goaded her to admit that. "Have a truffle."

"Is this a command?"

"No." Perturbed, Regina felt her brows coming together. The key felt very heavy in her palm, though it was a slim and inconsequential thing. Lebrea ate a truffle slowly. Her eyes closed, and the breath that came from her was tired. Regina watched her doze, and thought of all the times she had sneaked a look at her mother's Book. She did not remember a spell of Lebrea.

The girl was almost asleep on the floor, with her head at a strange angle. "Lebrea?"

Her eyes opened at once. "Yes?"

She had to do this as a slave, be awake and dutiful. It was the spell. Unable to look at the chain any longer, Regina grasped the girl's hands and undid the cuffs. The chain and cuffs disappeared once Regina drew away. Lebrea said, "When you wish to shackle me again, the means will reappear in your hands to do so."

"This is not my intention."

The purple eyes read her keenly. "No, I see that it is not. Nevertheless, there may come a time when you wish it. Should you wish to return me to the Book altogether, simply tap on the glass orb embedded in the cover and think _Lebrea, in_. To take me out, tap the glass and think _Lebrea, out_. Do not fear that people will see me while I am out. I can be seen or unseen as I wish." Her eyelids drooped.

"It cannot be comfortable to sleep there."

"Trust me," the girl said, and laughed bitterly. "I have slept in far worse conditions than upon thick carpet in a warm room. Trouble not over this. It does not matter."

"It matters to me," Regina said firmly. She got the girl up off the floor and set her on the side of the bed to collapse against the pillows. The bed was so large that six people could have slept in it and never touched.

While pulling up a throw around the girl, Regina said, "What was your name? The name you had before Lebrea?"

"I no longer remember," Lebrea whispered. "What is your name?"

"Regina," Regina said, forgetting to say Queen.

"Good night, Regina. You are kind," Lebrea said, and slept. On impulse, Regina smoothed a lock of hair from the girl's forehead, both disturbed by the small swelling that the blow from her last master caused, and eager to see what tomorrow would bring.


	6. Chapter 6

**_Chapter Six: Zara_**

The money had not come.

She did not expect it, yet she was irritated all the same. All the begging to Scorrus that she had done won her a single scout, who arrived well over a month after the party like time was not of the essence. Her name was Colette, and she was an absolutely useless woman that he rousted up from hells knew where. Probably the palace dungeons, a criminal who had her sentence commuted in exchange for this job. The woman had the look of a highwayman about her, ratty hair and patched clothes, utter indifference to hygiene that made standing across a desk from her difficult. Her breath reeked of ale. Zara did not think Colette could scout a penny from the floor of the mess hall, let alone get herself to the Far Sea.

Outfitting her in a bow and arrow, a weasel, a kai to ride and carry supplies, Zara wished her well and sent her off. The weasel came back alone to the Tower a week later. Following the tracks, a guard discovered the body. Colette hadn't even gotten as far as Ul'vuma. It had been a sport kill, as the body was whole. Zara was more upset at the loss of the kai, and at the time being wasted by this. What was she to do now? Send a letter to the Crown reporting the death of the scout and request another? Wait months for the response, a response that wasn't even guaranteed to come?

In her nightmares, she looked out the windows of her office to see basilisks flooding past in a stream of death. The Crown would scream, how they would _scream_ when basilisks took down Fletching or The Toes. These attacks would not stay upon the Ul wayfares that the Crown did not care about. They would move north and take everyone by surprise, everyone save her.

Perhaps it was a fluke, simply some good breeding seasons for basilisks. Perhaps the giants weren't moving after all. Yet this was why she needed scouts, to know if it was one or the other, since they obviously required different responses! If the giants were coming, the Crown needed to stop buying doves and truffles and gymnasts to invest in catapults. Trebuchets. Hexes.

She did not know what to do.

Her guards numbered two hundred, half men and half women, two-thirds Ryme and one-third Ul, and all hard as rock. Hard yet fatigued, since they were getting no break from the hunts. They did not ask for breaks, and that made her proud. The two hundred were divided into ten sables of twenty. Week to week they rotated, one sable on mess duties and maintenance for the Tower, one on kai and weasel care as well as training new recruits, and eight sables stationed in the desert.

When she had first come here, she only needed five sables in the desert. And now she needed more than the eight out there she had. There wasn't anyone that she could spare for scouting. Not one. The guards who hailed from the Ryme didn't know the terrain past Ul'boi. Some of the Uls did, having traded with the people of the Short Mountains, yet they were her best hunters. You could not teach sand eyes; they came from being raised upon the sand. She did not see how she could pull them from their sables to go south. News had come of a basilisk sighting in Ul'titi, and that was so close to the Tower that she was alarmed.

Fletching. The Toes. It was just a matter of time before the basilisks broke through the sands to wreak havoc on farmlands and villages and towns. And after the basilisks went through, the giants would finish off whoever was left. Should they indeed be coming . . .

If she could go to the Crown and say definitively that the giants were coming, they would be forced to take action! But she needed the scout to say that, and she did not _have_ the scout. She stayed late in her office to ruminate, drinking tea and looking out her window to this living nightmare. Ru-ru was asleep in his bed. Her constant agitation was unsettling to the poor creature, so she was glad that he slept.

Father had raised them so well. To make his children austere as he was austere, hard as he was hard, to not let them think that they were special by virtue of their exalted positions in the world. What was done could be undone. What was given could be taken away. Their tutors reported to him weekly with their progress; should they show none, they lost privileges. From every corner of the Ryme came gifts for holidays and birthdays and special occasions and no reason whatsoever, and they were not allowed to keep the wealth of it all. Pick a favorite. Share the rest. Zara and Stuart had never thought to rail against this, for how many bicycles could they ride? How many sweaters could they wear? Should a poor child of the Ryme shiver while the four royal children had more knitted caps and gloves than any four children could possibly need? Only Carlisle raged to have to share, and rarely in Father's hearing.

But as the people honored their rulers, so should rulers honor their people. Never had the four of them been given such a lavish birthday party as Princess Snow! That would have embarrassed Father, and it embarrassed Zara now. A gift of an _island_? Ridiculous. Snow had also received not one new horse but _three_, and Leopold made no mention of her sharing. It was a credit to the girl's naturally generous temperament that she was not spoiled rotten through and through; no credit was due her father for his parenting.

Zara had not realized how soft Leopold truly was until he became King. Carlisle always bore an air of arrogant, entitled laze to him that had infuriated their father, but Leopold! He only kept that laze concealed until it was safe to bring it forth. Upon her leave of the party, she made mention to him of its over-the-top extravagance. It was even more inappropriate in light of the bad years of harvests. He shrugged and blamed Scorrus. Dread rose into her throat as she rode away. How fast Leopold was going to point his finger at Zara when basilisks spread through the Ryme.

Her door opened. Without looking over her shoulder, she said, "I did not ring for anything."

Durim came up behind her. "I would not have responded if you had." He was her second-in-command, her lover, and the husband of her heart, not her servant. "Why have you not come to bed?"

She did not wish the comfort of his touch. She had not earned that relaxation. "When everyone has filled their ears with wax, how am I to make them _hear_? Am I to bang a drum and walk the streets of the Ryme shouting basilisks! Basilisks, beware! Shall I take up a donation for a scout? Yes, I could transform a sable into a dance troupe that visits town to town for pennies! What shall I _do_?"

"You will quiet," Durim said, and she quieted since she was speaking of frustration and not solution. A dark arm slipped around her waist. Ru-ru had lifted his head to see that she was all right, and she nodded in apology for him to return to sleep.

Still, she could not find the solution to this tangle. "There is no way through this."

"There is a way," Durim said.

"There is _not_! I can't pull guards from their sables for months to be scouts. These are well-oiled teams-"

"You have more than sables, Zara."

"Name who I have," she said in mockery, and turned in his grip to glare. He looked down to her, and the message in his dark brown eyes soon came clear. "You think that _I_ should go?"

"Since the Crown intends to give you none, you create one in yourself. The sables know their duties. They do not require your constant oversight. Ride south with me. I will be your eyes for the sand, your way through the mountains, and then you can be my voice to the Crown." He clasped her hand and entwined their fingers. Then he raised their joined hands up and kissed the back of hers. "Mine."

She kissed the back of his. "Mine." This was part of the ritual of an Ul handfast, and all that they could have of it. Carlisle once said while drunk (was he ever _not _drunk or in the process of becoming that way?) that she favored the south for its men, indicating with the separation of his index and third finger that she spread her legs for all of her guards. But no, she was not a flabby, drunken sot who welcomed every Tom, Dicken, and Harrie to her bed like he did every Jane, Delia, and Harmony. There was only one man for whom her legs parted, and only one man there would ever be.

Now that Durim had said it, the solution seemed simple. If the Crown did not grant her scouts or the extra funds with which to hire them, then she would do it herself. She would not bear the weight of those terrified screams frozen in their eternal agony, Ryme farmhands and shopkeepers and children caught off guard by basilisks sweeping down their lanes. This guilt would not be hers, to spoil her days and haunt her nights.

"I can put Yonoma in charge," Zara said, and she was beginning to feel excited about this prospect. A way through, any way through, was better than the stagnation. Yonoma was a retired second-in-command who still lived in the Tower as the weasel breeder, and his mind remained keen though his body was not. He knew every inch of the Tower and its workings, the rotation of the sables, the requisition of food and the keeping of the books. He could read the missives about taxes from the Southold Council as well as she. Neither the Tower nor the Southold would suffer under his leadership in her absence.

"When shall we leave?" Durim asked.

"Tomorrow at mid-morning, and we will spend the night in Ul'titi," Zara said. It would be two months' journey south and another two back, should all go well. And then she would have her answer, rather than _still_ be sitting in this office and waiting for the Crown to pay attention!

When he pulled her along to her room, she did not resist. To have a plan of action put fire in her veins, and she rode him hard in the cool sheets of the bed. At dawn she did so again before they rose, his hands clasping her hips and his eyes rarely swaying from the bobble of her small breasts. This would not be theirs for a while, not with nights trading watches for basilisks. They finished together, or near enough, and got up as one to start the day.

Yonoma had a face of stone, so much so that Zara could not tell if he was pleased at this change of events or not. A very young weasel was upon his shoulder and it had the same stoic expression. As he agreed to be the acting High Guard, a knock on the door announced a messenger from the Crown.

Her heart sank. Here would be the funds at long last for scouts, and there would be no more need for her to go. She had already committed herself to this journey, removed herself mentally from the Tower and imagined the days and nights elsewhere, and now she was going to stay. But that was that then, and there was no point in crying over it. Today she would apply herself to hiring scouts.

The messenger was a pompous man barely out of boyhood, his red hair done up into silly swirls and gaudy baubles as was the fashion in the cities around the palace. When she admitted him to the office, he ignored Yonoma and Durim to stand before her desk and puff up his chest with importance. "To the honored Princess Zara Astor of the Ryme, holder of the South as High Guard, protector of the-"

"Skip the formalities and get to the message," Zara snapped more harshly than she intended.

Her temper made the messenger nervous and meek. The baubles in his hair clicked as he looked down. "Uh . . . yes. In the matter of Getty Richella Tenzing, who has been abducted while traveling in the east-"

"She was abducted?" Zara asked in astonishment, thinking that she had not heard correctly. "By whom? Whatever was the motive?"

"That remains as yet a mystery. But she was most definitely the target of the attack upon the caravan to the Sweet Sea. Our honored King Leopold Astor of the Ryme, holder of the throne-" As he began to get underway with the formal recitation, the baubles clicked enthusiastically.

"Skip it."

He became meeker still. "The King and the War Council summon all of you, you and every guard of the Tower and the sands, to the Crown where you will aid in the investigation and recovery of the Getty."

Was her brother _insane_? Zara was to withdraw her sables from hunting basilisks to hunt her niece instead? They were not in control of the situation down here as it was! Without the sables, the basilisks would surely start pressing north at once. She was sorry about the girl, but Chella could not be put ahead of the safety of this entire land. Not even for Stuart's bastard daughter could Zara do that.

"Step outside," she ordered the messenger, who nearly fell over himself in his eagerness to obey. Yonoma was impassive; Durim was angry and trying to hide it. Sinking into her chair, Zara closed her eyes. She breathed in and out, wishing to expel this lunacy from her life as easily as the air from her lungs. "I am open to suggestions from both of you."

"If we withdraw the sables from the sands, we can kiss the south goodbye," Yonoma rumbled. "It will be under siege before the Guard reaches the Crown."

That she knew. "Durim?"

"The Guard should leave for the Crown at once," Durim said.

That genuinely surprised her. Durim had no love of the Crown, and after her description of the party in the garden, he had rage for it. "Why do you say this, Durim?"

"That is the order, and the Guards are sworn to uphold the orders from the King." He bowed to her deeply, to show either great respect or great apology. "This oath I break, and my life is yours."

"You can't resign!" Zara exclaimed.

"I resign as Guard, and so will scout south as a free man."

She stood up abruptly, since he was handing her the solution. The Guard rode north to the Crown, so he would not be a guard. "I accept your resignation. Your life is your own."

"This oath I break, and my life is yours," Yonoma grunted. She accepted his resignation and granted his life back to himself. These were men of duty for many years and this oath was not being broken lightly.

She would order her Guard north, yet she could not if there existed not a Guard. Calling the messenger back into the room, Zara relayed the message that the Guard would come to the Crown. He was to leave immediately to put them on alert. The man did not even request a night of rest. Desperate to be gone, he bowed and quit the Tower to retrieve his horse.

To the last man and woman in the mess and stables, the Guard resigned. Riders were sent out to the sables in the sands, but Zara expected no different response. It would take a while before the Crown put together that no one was coming. And then it would take a while more for a second messenger to come. At any point in that time, Chella could be found and the orders rendered unnecessary.

Zara would cope with the fallout from Leopold. If he relieved her of the commission to the Southold as punishment, then she would simply stay here and continue to hunt. What could he do? Drag her back in chains? Force her to marry a soft-palmed nobleman and live in an estate around the palace to keep an eye on her? She had a duty to this place that was deeper than the words of her oath, deeper than her loyalty to her brother. She lived upon the blood of the Ryme, and to the Ryme her blood belonged.

The kai were saddled and loaded with supplies. They were dull-minded creatures, a strange combination of cats and horses, but their legs were swift upon the sands. Ru-ru sat in his saddle pouch as they made ready, and Durim's weasel Pi-mi did the same. The dust from the messenger had long settled back to the north road.

But they were going south. This was her last chance to turn around, yet she did not falter in this decision. As she rode out of the gate, her Guard who were no longer guards saluted. Even the Uls.


	7. Chapter 7

**_Chapter Seven: Sisaxa_**

The time had been given, yet it was not the time that could be taken. She watched the flowers fall to the ground, heard the cheering and the bright notes of the trumpets, felt the thrill of the gathered crowds calling goodbye. All decked out in robes and finery, Carlisle waved from his Tower balcony. She stood in a corner with his wine while dressed as the serving girl.

One day, she would gut him like a fish, so that he might see what soft things were inside him. Not special things, apart from other men, but soft things that squelched and spilled and wriggled in a red pool. He would be surprised to learn this, but learn it he would, and never forget. Pain had a way of imprinting lessons on a mind like nothing else. Sisaxa knew this from long experience at causing pain.

A babe would cry at a shower of gold coins, for value was in bottles of milk. Then he grew into a man, and that man would cry at a shower of bottles of milk for value was in gold coins. Both had immense value to the very same person, but at different times in his life. Had the timing been in her favor, this would have been a perfect opportunity. With the focus of the palace turned to the east, no one would be expecting an attack from the west. Were the timing right, which it was not.

The Westhold Guard was a rough lot, charged with maintaining safe roads through the Draman Forest and too often discovered to be the ones causing the troubles. They stopped carriages to demand tolls and kidnapped those of means for ransom. They ceded roads to d'bei and centaurs at battle, rather than tell them to move it along to a place that did not interfere with the flow of commerce. A wagonload of wool from Yin at the northern end of the forest on an exodus to Keller at the southern end had only a seventy percent chance of making it. Carlisle believed that a three-quarters chance was good enough, and Sisaxa did not point out that seventy percent did not make three-quarters. A centaur would not have known that anyway.

The Crown had ordered a contingent of Westhold Guard to report to the palace, and Sisaxa almost pitied the Crown for what it was going to receive. Five hundred dirty, drunken louts were about to descend upon those darling cobbled streets, with chips on their shoulders and rusted old weapons passed down through the generations from Pa and Pee-paw and Pee-pee-paw to the latest batch of illiterate, lice-bearded scruffmuffins. The Crown should think of it as an appetizer for what was coming. In time.

Not that she expected all of the five hundred to even make it to the Crown, since the guards broke oaths as frequently as they broke wind. No, as those merry five hundred marched away to adoring crowds and tossed bouquets, she knew that many would trickle into the trees once out of sight. Back to waylaying travelers and idly eating popcorn as d'bei and centaurs battled and blocked the roads. Sisaxa did not know why her d'bei brothers and sisters bothered in their attempts at reclamations. In this way they were like the centaurs: the d'bei did it only because it had always been done. A race created for the express purpose of being servants did not have the self-authority to break away and serve themselves! Except they had, and did. Sisaxa used to engage in those battles herself, stalking along the forest to lay snares where she knew the herds often ran. Catch herself a servant to fetch and ride about her quiet home in the trees.

Carlisle smiled and waved down to the people of the Westhold. They had cried through his speech about his beloved niece Richella, and stamped their feet at his proclamation that she would be found come hells or high water. Last night in his room, he had complained to Sisaxa about sending off the five hundred since he couldn't very well plot sedition with his army somewhere else. He said this right in front of the new serving girl! Sisaxa added slitting the girl's throat to the list of tasks she had to complete before bedtime. Discretion was too big a concept for his mind.

One day she was going to slit _his_ throat. Since the messenger came, he had complained and complained about how unfair it was to lose a measure of his Guard, the cost of outfitting them in new duds. The Northold Guard had not been summoned! But the north did not keep much in way of Guard, since the north so rarely had problems. The little they possessed was posted on the roads connecting the north to the east, checking every carriage and wagon and rickshaw to pass through for Getty Chella. So there was little point in the Crown summoning the handful that they would receive. The Westhold Guard had a thousand and more.

Then he whined that the east should take care of its own problems. They had a massive Guard. And yes, it did, yet they were not a fearsome lot. Their palms were easily greased by gold to look the other way, look the other way again. The true rulers of the east were its pirates. They held a lock on the waterways through the region and bought politicians to keep them locked. The Guard of the East busied itself in the trivial crimes of street children and diverting traffic around accidents. Most could not run down a road without breaking out in a sweat, for the pirate gold to grease their palms kept them well fed.

The piece on this chessboard from the north was small and inconsequential. The piece on this chessboard from the east was large yet also inconsequential. Since Getty Chella was assumed to still be in the east somewhere, the Easthold Guard was not called to the Crown but told to stay there and search.

A definite sign that she was in the east would have the Guard from everywhere bearing down. And that would have been the perfect time for Prince Carlisle to strike the Crown with a centaur army. Sisaxa nudged him relentlessly to think of approaching the centaurs to be _his_ army, for they would give an oath to him and keep it to satisfy the question of their honor.

A hundred times she mentioned this in a hundred different ways, once a day in some fashion, and not allowing herself to sleep at night unless this task had been completed. The Guard of the Westhold could not be trusted, she reiterated, since they would as easily give fealty to Carlisle and storm the palace as they would flee to the palace and turn him in to King Leopold for a reward. But the centaurs! They would spit on the Guard for disrespecting their prince so.

And this morning, this morning on the march of the five hundred, this morning he at last presented the idea to her as if it were his own. Centaurs! What if he were to use the centaurs rather than the Westhold Guard? She thought about it while he looked at her in pleasure at his genius, and also with nerves that she might poke holes in his idea. Then she kissed his cheek and called it brilliant. Centaurs were vicious fighters, brutal and unyielding, but most of all _loyal_. How smart Carlisle was! To see that that brutality had to be matched equally in loyalty, or else all was lost.

It would have been perfect, had this been the time. To storm the Crown before the Southold sent its guards to aid the search. To have it be over and done with by the time Princess Zara rode up with her Guard. That was a far bigger piece on this chessboard. But by then, Sisaxa would be ensconced on the throne, with the gutted prince at her feet. The princess would join him, as would every Astor, in a big red pile of soft and squelching things. It was the time of the Blue.

Once the five hundred were gone and the crowds dispersing, Carlisle turned with a conspiratorial smile. She returned it. Within the hour, they were riding hard, everyone in the Tower believing that the destination was the tavern and whorehouse in Gremaire. This was a trip that Carlisle made frequently without guards, so nothing seemed amiss. At the crook of path that led to the village, Sisaxa nudged her horse out in front to travel through the trees and brush. The centaur herds were stabling at the Peaks. It was only a journey of half a day. In his saddlebags was a gift of yupsi truffles. In her saddlebags was a gift of a sapphire scepter.

To do something definite was making Carlisle nervous. She could see that in his pensive expression as they rode. To _do_ something bold rather than sit back and fill the air with complaints. She had dressed him well to meet King Achax. Centaurs listened to what spoke loudest, be it gold or jewels or declarations. The prince must show no fear before the Centaur Council. To show fear was to be judged a colt, and the spindly legs of a colt did not command respect.

When they paused to rest the horses at the banks of the river, she pressed the scepter into his hands. He choked to see the beautiful thing. "Where did you get this?"

"Do we have time for a quick story, my love?" Sisaxa said, as he turned over the scepter in wonder. "I do not wish to be the reason you are out in the darkness of the forest tonight."

"I have nothing to fear from darkness," Carlisle stated imperiously.

Indeed. "Before I came to you, I was trapped by a d'bei. Forced to do his bidding night and day. He had a treasure trove in his rooms, which were high above the forest in the caves of the Broken Mountains. Treasure that he had collected from humans over many centuries. This, this scepter here, this he prized from the treasury of a king more than a thousand years ago. The d'bei threw it into his caves to join the rest of his golden pickings. And when I escaped, I took it with me."

Excited, Carlisle said, "You should lead me to these caves! His treasury will be mine."

She laughed. "Oh, sweet prince, it is a journey of many months through mucklands and Red fairies. And I would never find it again, since the Broken Mountains reform every year. His cave is no longer where it was. But this scepter I took to spite him for stealing me. And now I wish to give it to you, to aid in your dealings with King Achax."

"He'll be happy with the truffles." Carlisle eyed the scepter greedily. "I am going to keep this for myself."

"Very well, my prince." Sisaxa laughed again.

She had anticipated that he would do this. Oh, she knew him well. Oh, she knew the centaurs well. King Achax would not be impressed with the truffles, even expensive ones. Centaurs loved sparkling things. That was why the snares she once laid for them had sparkled. To even consider riding against the Crown as the army of Prince Carlisle, King Achax would need to be supplied with something impossibly grand. The truffles would be thrown at Carlisle's feet, those sweet brown balls tumbling in a wave over the golden floor of the Council to dash his dreams, and he would cry, "Wait, wait! One more gift I have!" and produce the scepter to change the tide of their negotiations.

In time, the scepter would turn back to the stick it actually was. The spell upon it could not last forever, not with the magic stolen from her. One day King Achax would ask to be brought his scepter, so that he could sit upon his throne and wave it around, and the servant would come to him with that nubby stick. The servant would die.

They arrived at the Peaks along with the night. Centaurs laughed and drank, fought and mated around fires. Nearly every head was covered in a lick of flame-colored hair; nearly every voice was raucous. They called to one another and every name bore an x. Maxam. Ullax. Rofollox. Xo-xo. The names were queer, and it was becoming en vogue among the poorest of the poor in the Westhold to borrow these names for their human children.

Two turned into horses and kicked each other drunkenly, Sisaxa stepping her horse aside to not be struck. The ale and food came to them freely from Westhold villages, which did not wish to risk angering the centaurs. It was one of those matters that the prince was supposed to control, yet let run rampant. He loved hanging about in taverns with centaurs, and wished that people would stop petitioning him to arrest them.

Up the Peaks they went to the Council tent. Two fires burned brightly in copper bowls around the closed flaps. A well-armed guard stood at the flap and grunted, "State your business."

"I wish to solve the riddles," Carlisle said after announcing himself. Sisaxa had prompted him on the ritual to gain entrance. King Achax had authored the three riddles, and he found them very clever. The centaur people also found them very clever, since they could neither solve them, nor were capable of coming up with riddles of their own.

"What are neither day nor night?" the guard asked.

"Dawn and dusk," Carlisle answered.

"What flies in the air yet swims in the sea?"

"A codswallow bird."

"What runs on four legs yet stands on two?"

"A centaur."

He was admitted, and strode in with all of the confidence she had told him to show. A servant carried in the saddlebag that held the yupsi truffles and sapphire scepter. Sisaxa remained outside, as that was her place for now. She breathed in the smell of smoke from the fires and looked up to the stars. This time was not the time. _Her_ time.

Yet with this step, it was nearing.


	8. Chapter 8

**_Chapter Eight: Chella_**

She did not know the girl in the mirror.

Richella Light Tenzing was a tall girl with a lovely figure. Once she had spent two days looking at paint samples to determine the exact shade of her very straight hair. It fell somewhere between sandy brown and bronze, which pleased her tremendously since this sounded very complicated.

That was the exact same reason she liked her astrological sign, since other people answered the question with a flat_ Aries_ or _Leo_ or _Libra_, and Chella could say that she was on the cusp of Sagittarius and Capricorn. That was ever so much more interesting, and she could read two horoscopes in the newspaper and decide which one she liked better. If Sagittarius was set to have a bad day, then she just went with Capricorn. If Capricorn was due for a bit of astral disjunction, then she just went with Sagittarius. They were never both having bad days on the _same_ day, so she took this as a tribute to her cleverness at being born on the cusp.

Her eyes were hazel, some parts green and others a hazelnut brown. She was not as beautiful as her cousin Princess Snow, but Chella had no reason to be a wallflower. And she was far lovelier than her cousin Princess Monica, who had the face of a horse and lank hair the precise color of sludge. That was its true color, even though she dyed it with d'bei wands to be red or blonde or black. Once it had gone wrong from overusing the wand and she'd spelled herself bald, which was a secret that Chella heard through the grapevine when she was twelve. Monica had had to wear wigs for a while.

Truly the only bad feature upon Chella's person was her toes. They were far too long and much too thin, so she did not like to wear sandals. When she was truly in misery over them, she fantasized about finding a Green fairy to magically lop off three-quarters of an inch from each one. The problem lay only with the toes, as her feet had high, graceful arches and a very nice pink flush overall. It was just the length and width of the toes, which were so manly. In cold weather, she did not think of them much. In hot, she was embarrassed that someone might notice how very long her toes were and comment upon it. Seeing girls in sandals with shorter, plumper, properly girlish toes made her jealous.

So that was Chella, a pretty girl with interesting complications, and rather hideous toes. But this was not the girl reflected in the mirror any longer.

They were a band of eight.

For only a short time, the horse had run with her jouncing painfully upon its back. Then the sun on her skin changed to cool, the light coming through the sack darkened, and a man called for someone named Blind Fairy. A tiny, female voice responded eagerly that they should drop the toll in her cup and go on through. She asked if they knew the Orb did not transport in a timely fashion, and the man responded they did, but they had to use it to keep their fishy produce fresh to their far-off destination. The Orb passage was cheaper than ice. Sometimes, the old ways were better ways. To this the Blind Fairy said, "Ah, ah!" in delighted agreement. As the horse walked on, she added, "A nice fish you've fished! Such a non-fishy smell."

The darkness coming through the sack changed to an overwhelming brightness, and the horse stopped yet again. Or did it? Chella was not quite sure. Sometimes it felt like they were walking, others still, and she judged an hour passed in this queer circumstance of being motionless yet moving all at once. Then they were _definitely_ moving, with her being jounced about painfully once more, and at last they stopped.

There were stairs going down and hands on her arms, rough voices coming through the sack. She was placed in a chair with her arms tied behind her back and the sack removed to reveal a cellar. Immediately her head was tipped and her mouth forced open. A man said, "Only three drops! Only three drops, I say!" She struggled right then, and the second man holding her mouth open dumped in everything from the ampoule by accident.

It tasted quite disgusting. Indeed, it was the most disgusting taste that she had ever had in her mouth. The first man ordered her to spit it out, and she swallowed by reflex to get that foul taste away from her tongue. Then the men shouted at one another as a queer sensation overcame her. One man wanted to push a feather into her throat to make her vomit; the second wanted him not to since it did not matter. The third was angry that there were more than three drops in the ampoule; the fourth was angry that they had not abducted Princess Snow while she was at hand. The fifth complained that they had not known Princess Snow was even there in the caravan; the sixth soothed that Getty Chella would get them what they wanted without need of the princess. The seventh was silent and looking down; the eighth was silent and looking to Chella.

She felt so very queer. Like she had separated from herself, so that she was sitting on this chair but within a stranger. It made her want to stand up and cede the chair to this other person, yet her body was very heavy and she could not. So she continued to sit there, both herself and this stranger fitted into the same space at the same time. The eight men sighed and argued and stared, all of them dressed in rough clothes and with dirt under their fingernails. Chella turned her head, which was both her head and the stranger's head, to look at the cellar. It was a very dirty place with cobwebs strung between the rafters, and dust thick upon mostly empty shelves. There were many barrels of different sizes, most of which were also empty and their bands rusted. She had never been in such a dirty place in all of her life.

"But how are we to ransom her now?" argued the first man. "As she had the entire contents of that ampoule, she may never change back!"

"Why couldn't we just have gotten an ampoule with three drops?" complained the third man once more.

"What difference does it make now that she's had them?" said the second. "We must figure out where the path leads from here, not from whence it came."

"If we had only gotten the princess," mourned the fourth man. "We could have lived like kings." Now more of them were looking at Chella, who looked back to them through her eyes and someone else's.

"We could take her to the clearwaters and make her drink," suggested the seventh, and this was the first he had said.

"Yet that would remove the spell entirely and at once," argued the first man in frustration. "Guards will be crawling over every inch of the East in short order. They are crawling over it now! We only needed to conceal her long enough to complete negotiations and the transfer of funds! Are we to keep her here until she is old, waiting for her to change back? And we will be ever older, ever older than that, so old that it no longer matters."

"I can't believe it took two months and change to get back here," said the eighth man. Chella could not imagine what he was talking about, since she had been in their disagreeable company for what she gauged to be less than two hours. She did not know what the Orb was, although she dimly remembered the word on a page of a history text that she'd skipped in her studies out of boredom.

The band of eight quieted, and sixteen eyes looked at Chella's four. Because it _was_ four, hers and this stranger's, even though two hours did not equal two months and two people could not share the same seat! Then one man said, "That doesn't look anything like her at all. We could walk her everywhere and have no fear."

"Great smokes!" cried another. "Such sorcery before us!"

"But she only needed three drops!"

"Perhaps one of us can go to the clearwaters," one mused. "Collect an ampoule from the river and bring it back. _Then_ we can ransom the girl, _and_ the ampoule with the solution to her condition."

"But the clearwaters are in the north! That is a fearsome ride from here, and we do not even know where exactly they are!"

"Does Hallis know? He was the sorcerer's apprentice. We should ask Hallis."

A great amount of feet trudged up the stairs and the door slammed. Chella was feeling less and less queer now. The ropes had not been done tightly on her wrists, and she wriggled out of them. Slipping a hand into the pocket of her dress, she pulled out her compact and flipped it open.

Someone else stared back in the reflection. She cried out in horror and said, "Who are you? What witchery is this?" Her voice was lower than it should be, and she cleared her throat.

As she spoke these words, the reflection cried out in horror and said, "Who are you? What witchery is this?" And she cleared her throat.

This girl was _herself_! Chella moved the mirror all around. The dress she wore was now too long, since she had shrunk several inches. The dress she wore was now too tight, since she had gained several pounds! No longer was her very straight hair a complication between sandy brown and bronze to her waist. It was raven black and fell just beneath her shoulders in waves. No longer were her eyes a mix of green and hazelnut brown; they were simply brown all over. Her cheeks had plumped, her nose gone flat, a dimple had pressed itself into the snub of her chin. She kicked off her too-large shoes to see little girlish toes there, which brought her a spark of joy, yet the arches were no longer as grand and extinguished it. Was her astrological sign the same? She had no idea.

Someone would come to rescue her surely, and this band of eight taken to the dungeons in chains. But how was she to be rescued when her face was no longer hers? Despair filled her heart, which undoubtedly looked as different on the inside as her outsides did. The Guard would be searching for a tall, slim girl with complicated hair and eyes, long toes and a higher-pitched voice! Not this dark girl who Chella sat within.

Certainly she did not want to remain in this dirty cellar any longer. Slinking up the stairs, she tried to open the door. It caught fast, since it was locked. The men were gathered on the other side, arguing and mourning and sighing. The clearest voice to pierce the wood of the door said in disappointment, "Of course he did not know! The sorcerer's apprentice yes indeed, but the old man sorcerer never traveled with the boy! Secrets are taught in travels. I know this much of sorcery. And then I claimed him as a lad of ten, so even less time he had to learn."

Since Chella could not go out, she had to look for another exit. But the walls of this place bore no other door. A tiny window was high against the far wall. She crossed the cellar and climbed onto the splintering table there to look outside. A stretch of dirt went out beyond the glass, and it led to the red wood of a barn. To the side of the barn were cultivated fields, so she knew that she was on a farm.

The door opened. Quickly she jumped off the table and returned to her chair. One of the men came downstairs with a tumbler and plate of food. Seeing her ropes on the floor, he set the meal on the last step and said, "Don't get any funny ideas about escaping!" Then he went back up the stairs.

She did not know what was funny about escaping. Right now, it seemed like a very serious business. Disliking to be left down here, Chella cried, "You are going to be hanged for this crime! I am Getty of the Southold!"

"I don't see a Getty," the man said cruelly from the top of the stairs, for she no longer looked as she should. "And as it will be a long time you are down here waiting for an ampoule of the clearwaters to change back _into_ the Getty, I suggest that you get comfortable."

"How am I to get comfortable in this ratty, dreary place?" Chella demanded. "Never have I had such uncomfortable accommodations! These cannot be borne, for I cannot bear them."

"I have had to bear them all of my life," the man said, and closed the door.

Upon the plate were meat and cheese and bread, all of it ripped and ragged at the edges, and within the tumbler was water without cucumber or cherries. Chella set down the crude meal upon the table. There were not even utensils with which to eat! Nor was there a napkin.

If she gained any more weight, the dress was going to split at the seams. She set the bread aside and ate the rest while contemplating what to do. A pretty fix this was! And what was she to use for a chamber? She might have to squat over one of the shorter, empty barrels. That was the most revolting thought to have ever graced her mind.

If it had indeed been two months to pass through the Orb, that meant the Guard had no clue of who had taken her. Had they known, they would have been waiting on this other side for the band of eight to come through with Chella. And then arrested them and returned her to the Tower. Then she would never have seen this dirty cellar, the strange face in the mirror, or had her dress be too tight.

Since there was nothing else to do once her meal was gone, she cleared aside some of the barrels to make an empty space for herself to exercise.

Author's Note: I must confess that I was born upon a cusp, and do exactly as Chella does when reading my horoscope.


	9. Chapter 9

**_Chapter Nine: Regina_**

The fingers touched lightly to her hair and drew it back, and in the voice was an even lighter chastisement. "Regina."

She stilled to feel those warm fingers tracing along her scalp. "I forgot." Regina had forgotten on purpose.

"Would you send a soldier into battle with her hair down?" Lebrea said in her sweet cadence. "To get in her way, to block her sight?"

"But I am no soldier," Regina said. The fingers traced along her crown so that Lebrea could braid. Regina had no intention of ever remembering to do this herself, not when it won her these touches.

"You are a soldier before the battle of each spell, and you have blocked your sight. Just as in a battlefield, balance is delicate. It can change in a heartbeat. One loose lock, Regina, one strand of this lovely dark hair of yours touching a potion and its use is changed or nullified entirely. One eyelash to drop by accident; one sleeve to graze the surface. And here I find you with your hair down, your sleeves long, and I do not think your mind is wholly on this spell. Tell me what other thoughts are so entertaining as to distract you from our purpose?"

The girl drove her mad every day. In the morning, Regina woke to her on the other side of the bed's vast expanse, looking so sweet in repose. The room was too warm. If it were too cold, that would have been an excuse to curl up together. Regina always woke first and watched her sleep until the maids came in. They did not see Lebrea, since she did not wish to be seen, and Regina had to remember not to speak to her or else look insane. The kitchen sent two breakfasts on the cart now. Regina expelled every servant from her apartments while they dined. The gossip roving through the palace was that she was with child. If she was, it was due to some Red fairy's evil spell and not the king.

After breakfast was a long day of annoyances. Party planning. Meetings with ambassadors. The weekly Investiture to decorate gifted poets, brave warriors, courageous explorers . . . or at least that was whom it was originally designed to reward. Since Leopold took the crown, standards had slipped. This week Regina found herself granting the title of Sir to a near-monkey of a man for dancing the meanest jig in the Ryme, and the title of Miss to a woman who could eat forty sausages in three minutes flat. Leopold granted titles to whoever amused him, and he was easy to amuse.

Unseen at the Investiture had been Lebrea, who took in the demonstration of the jig with laughter. Only Regina heard it, and bit down hard upon her lower lip to keep from laughing along. When the room was emptied, she turned on the girl in a mixture of joy and temper to have nearly lost her composure. Lebrea curled into her at once, the honey blonde hair pressed to Regina's neck and her body quaking with merriment. The temper evanesced, to be replaced with fire. Regina pressed her hand to that soft hair and said in a scolding tone, "You mustn't! There is a face I have to present to the public-"

"Then return me to the Book so I can laugh there," Lebrea chortled. "Never have I seen such a hairy man or strange dance, and how I wish to watch that woman gobble sausages like a starving pig at a trough."

Regina did not return her to the Book, not ever. She was sorry to have to release Lebrea when they finally calmed from this ridiculous Investiture. Leopold shamed the kingdom, but at least Regina had someone to laugh with about it. In the afternoons the girl traveled with her to venues: hospitals where the queen was to brighten the spirits of the ill, to society teas, to the million other obligations that she had to attend. Through it all Regina sat and smiled and shook hands, with one eye on the clock. The girl roved the venues in her unseen way. Somehow she always knew when it was time to leave, and reappeared at Regina's side on the walk to the carriage.

Sometimes there were also events at dinner, and Regina hated to see those on the schedule. She wanted to retire as soon as possible, and twice begged off with headaches. Let the princess sit in her place. Or squirm in her place, as the case was. The girl was_ still_ weeping and wailing about the abduction, how noble Chella had burst from the carriage to rescue the ladies of their caravan.

The servants were again expelled after bringing two dinners to the queen's apartments, and they were flummoxed that Regina wished no help in disrobing. But Lebrea did that, her fingers swift on the buttons down Regina's spine and the dress laid out in the closet upon the table for the maids to handle the next day. Forgoing the private dining room, they sat about on the carpet by the fire to eat and flip through the Book for a spell. Once Regina left a smudge of sauce on a page, and Lebrea chastised, "That Book is older than Time, and unmarked by it until now."

Regina wiped at it guiltily. She shouldn't be eating and reading this Book, and she was scandalized to be responsible for the first mark. And for such a foolish reason! "Maybe there's a spell you can teach me to remove it?"

The hand was warm upon her cheek, drawing her face up from the Book to earnest eyes. "You took me seriously when it was meant in jest. Vicouth left a big splotch of mustard on page forty-two."

Vicouth. Regina did not like to think about him striking Lebrea. The mark had healed swiftly, yet the fact of a mark at all made her angry. When the hand slid away, she wanted to catch and return it.

Then it was time for magic. She was doing well with a guide where she had failed on her own. Floating the heavy Book was no longer an act of strain, and she could make small changes to her appearance. She did not look very comely with blonde hair, and even less so with three nostrils. Yet to see success! It was a thrill every time. She could point to a blanket and watch it fold itself; flip the latch on the window and open it without bothering to walk across the room.

While her hair was being braided, she asked about the pages in the Book that were stuck together. Lebrea's purple eyes were grave in the mirror's reflection. "Those are deeper magics, and they come with greater prices."

"How do you mean?" Regina asked.

"To bend the will of others to your own, to compel them to do your bidding, that would be a spell of very deep magic. And as you take a piece of them, so the spell will take a piece of you. Your innocence, your love, your compassion . . . they are not spells to learn lightly. I will only teach those if commanded. They are quite repugnant."

"It is only how they are used that makes them repugnant," Regina disagreed.

"Tell me then, in what way could a spell of that kind be used for good? Once you begin playing with minds, you step onto dangerous ground. You would not like your will set aside for another's." Braid completed, she set her hands on Regina's shoulders. "Perhaps that person judged that it was in your best interests, but would you agree? Who is this other person to decide what is best in your life? To use magic this way is offensive, and I am speaking as Magic."

In discomfort, Regina thought of how her mother used magic this way. "I would think that you'd support it, since it _is_ you."

"If the spirit of Knife was speaking, what would He say? To cut bread and cheese and beef, this pleases Him. To pry open a caught latch, this pleases Him. To slice through living human meat, this pleases Him not. Just because He can be used to do this last, does not mean He cares to be used so. Just because I can be used to override someone's desires, does not mean I care to be used so." As she spoke, her fingers trailed over Regina's shoulders and left fiery streams in their wake. "Many, many centuries have I lived, Regina. In all that time, I have yet to see deeper magics used in ways that please Me." She traced over Regina's eyebrows and brushed away a loose hair. "Now, do you feel like working tonight? Or shall we eat yupsi truffles until we're ill and grant titles to their makers?"

It was late when they retired, but Regina stayed awake a while longer to look at the dark shape so far away on the bed. If it were only cold . . . she could not stand this any longer. Scooting over on the mattress, she tentatively slipped her arm around the girl's waist. Lebrea pressed back into her unconsciously. Closing her eyes, Regina pressed her forehead to the girl's shoulder and slept, where she had heated dreams.

In the morning, she woke up on her back with Lebrea still asleep and tangled around her. The girl's cheek was squashed to Regina's shoulder. Regina did not dare to move. Her body prickled with desire. The maids came in and Regina spoke sharply to make them leave. It woke Lebrea, who unwrapped herself limb by limb as the door closed.

"Were you cold last night?" Lebrea asked.

"Very," Regina lied.

"And that was all?"

Regina loved this game, and loved what she saw in those purple eyes. "That was all. Mostly."

"You could transform me into a man, if that is what pleases you," Lebrea said.

"That is not what pleases me."

"Then I expect a little more from you tonight than an arm so hesitant at my waist I barely feel it." Brows lifting, Lebrea smiled saucily and rolled away.

It was a direct challenge. Regina was good at those. Closing a hand around the girl's hip, she rolled her back.


	10. Chapter 10

**_Chapter Ten: Zara_**

They had ridden hard and deep into the southern sands over many days. All that was about them to see were hills and valleys of yellow grains. Durim was spying so many tracks along the roads that he had pulled them from it to travel directly upon the sands. She did not question him. She knew better than to question sand eyes.

Once he stopped them short and motioned to the weasels, who ran ahead to scout. Durim motioned again for Zara to move back, which she did at once. The weasels flushed out a basilisk from around the next hill, and Durim buried an arrow through its mouth open to hiss. They went around the hill and found a den with three massive basilisk eggs. Zara put arrows through all of them. Only one emerged still alive, a scrawny, half-grown thing, and the weasels finished it off.

Basilisks lived by vibrations, and Zara suspected that they were learning to stalk the roads from what they felt beneath them. Vibrations from the sands could be anything, other basilisks or creatures like kai, not necessarily humans. But a steady vibration from the roads meant one thing and one thing only. Pair that with the vibration of voices . . .

Though they were not on the roads, Durim and Zara spoke only when necessary. That was not at all. The bows were always at hand, the quivers ever on their backs. She watched the sands for movement. Attack could come from any direction and at any moment. At times her mind wandered away to other matters. It was hard to be watchful when nothing was happening hour after hour. Sternly she cast a net to drag her thoughts back to her immediate present. This was not the moment to think about giants or her brothers, or some other annoyance in her life. When they traded watch at night, Durim kissed the back of her hand and she kissed his in the handfast ritual. It was all they allowed themselves, a quick sweetness so they did not feel so distant from this silence and stress.

Only in wayfares did they speak. In Ul'guru, Zara voiced her fear about the roads over their meal. Durim said, "I conclude the same." They would soon be impassable.

Both were still listening and watching that night in the inn, even though there were obviously no basilisks in this fine room. The innkeeper had been shocked to receive a visit from a princess of the Ryme, and had filled a table with presents while they bathed. It was the finest the region had to offer, painted fans and filmy clothes, other trinkets that Zara could not take along on this expedition.

Once in bed, she wanted to take comfort in the hard body beside her, yet her mind and body were still on alert. It took a long time to calm down enough for rest. Then she woke to him in the windowseat, where he was watching below. Wrapping the blanket around herself, she curled up between his legs to watch with her head upon his chest. Instead she fell asleep quite deeply and woke to sunlight.

"I am slovenly," she said, both about the drool she had slicked down his chest, and having fallen asleep at all.

"You are too hard on yourself," Durim said.

"Ul women are hard," Zara retorted.

"No. Like Ul men, Ul women know that there is a time for hardness and a time for softness. Out on the sand calls for hardness. Last night called for softness."

"Then why were you in the window keeping watch?"

"I was thinking of what my eyes are reading upon the sands, and what it means. The tracks I see, Zara, they go every way save south." His hand was upon her shoulder blade. She forced herself away and he pulled her back. "The kai must rest this day, and so must we after a week of half-rations in sleep. This afternoon I will speak to the Boole of this wayfare to learn of anything we should know about the terrain immediately south and away from the roads."

Even if they found nothing on this journey, killing four basilisks had rendered it worthwhile. So often the sables did the work while she signed papers in her office. Through a sleepy morning, she thought of how many people would be spared with the deaths of those four. Basilisks were not long-lived creatures, yet the destruction they could wreak in a short lifespan was incredible. Three of those four had yet to cause a single scream, and she drowsed in triumph.

In the afternoon, Durim went to meet with the Boole. It was polite for Zara to go through her gifts and make use of what she could to please the innkeeper, so she did. The wine and edibles they could enjoy tonight. The skirt was beautiful, a deep blue with golden jingles sewn to the hem. She pulled it on, along with the thin matching wrap for a top, and looked in the mirror. This was more to her liking than the complicated creations that Ryme women wore.

The door opened suddenly and she said, "That was fast."

Durim's mouth had been open to speak, yet no words came from his throat. Dark eyes traveled up and down her body. In no time, she was bent over the back of the sofa with the skirt hiked up to her waist and the top torn off. With every thrust, the skirt jingled. She reminded herself that this was a time for softness and let herself cry out when his fingers worked between her thighs.

"Nava," he groaned at his climax, the Ul word for wife. She had already taken her pleasure, but found one of another kind at being called nava. Never did she worry about children, since Cretta the Prophet said long ago that Zara would birth none. He sagged against her back and kissed her shoulder. When he pulled away, the skirt fell with a cascade of jingles. "It suits you."

"I see that it does, though I had not intended for you to see it," Zara said. She reached for the top and he snatched it away. "And of Boole?" Smiling, she fell bare-breasted onto the sofa to rest.

He flung the top across the room and sat opposite her. "Dead, along with his apprentice. They scouted south and were killed by basilisks. The new Boole has not even left the wayfare, so his knowledge is little." As he spoke, he withdrew a crude, hand-drawn map from his pocket and gave it over for her inspection.

She unfolded it. Here was the wayfare in the crease along the upper side of the page, and down at the bottom were the two-sided triangles of mountains. Cobweb lines sprawled across the parchment to represent roads, and fat bundles like trapped flies represented wayfares. Since they were avoiding the roads, she looked over a shaded portion that they would have to travel instead. "What is that?"

"It is called the Valley, and it is four days' south," Durim said. "Great dunes rise up all around it, and within is nothing but a stretch of sand. Basilisks are spotted in the Valley now and then."

"I have never received requests for sables to come to this Valley," Zara said.

"These are not heavily trafficked roads, which reduces the opportunities to attack. The wayfares south of this point are small and of no consequence; some prefer to keep to themselves and do not even let peddlers within the walls. We will go with care through the Valley and press on."

They ate and drank and slept. Dawn found them back on the kai and pushing out of the wayfare. Her mind did not want to be netted, and she drew it back kicking and screaming to work. _Here_ was where she had to be, not preparing for the showdown with her brother-king in the future. It was terrible to consider taking this plea to the people, showing up her brother publicly for a fool . . . again she cast out the net to retrieve herself from what did not matter at this moment.

During her nightly watches, she stood stock-still to give basilisks no vibrations to track. Ru-ru took watch with her, pulling his basket from the tent and sitting inside it with his dark eyes looking out over the sands. The kai were also still, their knees locked as they slept standing up. They came across no more basilisks over the days to the Valley, although the look on Durim's face gave Zara no cause to rejoice. Over and over, he straightened to peer down at the sands. Zara wished that she could see as he could, to be able to tell what groove below was simply formed of wind and what had been the passage of a basilisk. Her sables had killed so many, yet still there were more.

In the evening, he held up his finger to keep her from dismounting. Softly he slid down to the sands and then he came to her kai to lift her down. The intent in his eyes was for her to stand still like she did on watch, and she did as he set up camp. His moves were quick and soundless. Had her eyes been closed, she would have thought that she was alone.

For four hours she slept. They traded and she listened to nothingness. Even in the morning, he made her stand still while he took apart their camp. Then he lifted her back up to the kai. Despite his care to make no sound, his shifting in the saddle to look down, she was taking some heart. They had not come across more clutches of eggs anywhere.

The terrain had been changing, from flatness to small dunes, from small dunes to medium dunes, and from medium dunes now to massive ones. They rose well over Zara's head, some growing thin greenish plants and others barren of life. The bones of a kai were dry and yellow on the sands between two of these great dunes. It had lain here for a very long time, possibly a decade or more, so there was nothing to fear.

At midday they came to the shaded portion of the map made real. Zara's heart stopped to look down, and until her lungs demanded it, she feared to exhale. She did not need sand eyes to see the writhing tangles of basilisks below. What should have been a stretch of yellow sand was a sea of grayish-green bodies.

Hundreds, no, _thousands_ of them were down there, laying out in the sun and hissing as they slithered around heaps of bones and broken wagons. A live kai was being dragged around another dune, and a dozen necks lifted to strike. In some places the snakes were so thickly in a nest that she could not even count how many were there. She and Durim looked at one another in horror. The captured kai screamed and died.

Were this to descend upon the Ryme, no force in creation could stop it. No magic, no arms, nothing could stopper this tide. She felt like she was looking at the end of the world.

They backed away slowly and quietly. Since they could not speak, she had no way to know why Durim was choosing the path east that he did. Perhaps because the nearest road was west, and that was where the basilisks would expect to find their prey. Even when the Valley was long behind them, he continued east. Their vibrations must not pass through the sands to the inhabitants of that Valley. The massive dunes shrank to medium and small, and then flattered out to nothing by night. The moon was full in the sky and still he rode with Zara following. And she could not think! This was not the time to plan her next move yet her mind was desperate to work out this problem.

A dark form leaped between her kai and Durim's. She jerked her bow around and shot it through the head as her kai reeled back. A second arrow flew from Durim's bow and the weasels leaped down to bite through the creature's throat. Then they scattered out to look for more.

"You did not . . ." Zara whispered, "You did not see that one?"

"It was not there when I passed," Durim whispered.

She could not withhold the hysteria from her voice. "By the time the giants come, if they do, there will be no soul left alive in all the Ryme!"

The weasels came back, having found no more. Durim pressed his head to hers and did not answer, since there was nothing he could say.


End file.
